


In The Shadows of Burned Bridges

by Belfire



Series: With Family Like This Who Needs Joker? [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Attempted Murder, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Bruce Is A Bit Of An Asshole, Childhoood Traumas Involving The Creepy Neighbour's Man, Dick Is A Bit ADHD, Extremely Underage, F/M, Jason Todd and his habit of dishing out nutshots, Jason has Daddy issues, Jason kicking the shit outta people while tied to a stripper's pole, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Pedophilia, Protective big bro, Self-Esteem Issues, Statutory Rape, Underage Prostitution, Violence, father/son feels, hints of jaydick, including the men of the Todd family, non-graphic past underage, nothing stays buried forever, past child prostitution, paternal failings, protective daddy bats, suspicious timing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-06-09 07:37:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 15
Words: 90,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15262578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belfire/pseuds/Belfire
Summary: An unknown foe paints a target on Red Hood's head and it's open season all 'round Gotham. No part of the situation scares Jason until Willis Todd, his long-lost and thought to be dead biological father makes a coincidentally timed reappearance.And he wants to make amends.Jason doesn't embrace the idea but part of him wants to believe it's real. However, Bruce begins to suspect something is far more amiss than his son realised and that Willis might have some self-serving motives for reconnecting with Jason.But things are a little more deep-rooted than that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anrim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anrim/gifts).



_It had been an abnormally humid summer day in Gotham City, hot as a barbeque in hell. Heavy grey mantles hung in foreboding thick blankets above the people's heads, promising an onslaught of rain at any given moment, which would have been a welcome break in the weather. But so far, the clammy air had them suffering with no end in sight._

_It was one of the few rare days that Willis was actually home, not making ends meet by running numbers for Two-Face or stealing unsupervised cars on an empty street corner somewhere. It was a rare day.... when he had nothing to do, which made it the ideal moment to catch up on some lost Zs on the couch. There was no noise, it was completely quiet, say for the usual city sounds coming from the open window. Catherine was out, picking up groceries from the dollar store a few blocks down, and Jason....._

_He wasn't sure where his five-year-old son was right now. Maybe he had gone with his mother or perhaps he was playing in his room?_

_Either way, he was sure the kid was fine....._

_Maybe._

_Hopefully._

_Though trying hard to sleep, his mind kept involuntarily lingering on that thought and the more Willis dwelt on it, the more restless he got. He tossed on the couch, slung his arm over his eyes to shield them from the sunlight glaring in through the thin mould speckled curtain, did everything he could to keep sleeping._

_But with son's whereabouts unknown, he couldn't relax. No half decent father could._

_Groaning from effort, Willis pushed himself up and stumbled across the living room until the headrush passed and he regained his footing. Then he was off the scour the house in search of his child._

_" Jason?" He pushed the boy's bedroom door ajar, peering in through the sliver of space at the empty room and few toys scattered on the ground.  But no Jason._

_Willis had thought Jason would be playing, quietly as he always did. Most kids made a racket with their made up little games, but not his. He barely made a peep, ever. It was definitely strange.  Some people he knew referred to Jason as 'well trained', but Willis didn't like that. Made his son sound like a dog, not a child. But then, most people living in the Narrows did treat their offspring no better than wretched hounds._

_Frowning as he pushed away from the door frame, Willis went through every part of the small two bedroom apartment, calling Jason's name every now and again.The boy usually responded instantly._

_" Jay?"_

_Nothing._

_By now, he was getting worried if he wasn't before. Where could a five-year-old be by himself in Gotham, and not be in imminent danger?_

_Possibilities were zipping through his mind by now, each a terrifying predicament for Jason, and before long, he was beginning to feel something akin to panic._ _Willis was already dialling Catherine on his cell to see if she had their son and living in the strong hopes that she did when on a whim, he stepped out of the apartment and into the hall outside._

_And there was Jason, chatting with the new neighbour's man a little distance away. Jason was leaning on the wall with a bright smile as he listened to whatever story the man was spinning. He was standing a little too close to Jason. As preciously innocent five-year-old, Jason didn't see the harm in the distance. Or lack thereof. And why and when had Jason even come out here? Willis had never heard the door._

_The relief that had sent Willis awash was quickly swapped with a red haze of anger and parental protectiveness when the bastard registered in his head._

_The man was small in comparison to himself, pale and of a spindly build with white strands of bleached hair swinging down to frame his narrow face. His teeth were yellow and watery grey eyes encircled by maroon bags. That and the way his skin hung loosely around his skeletal figure were all telltale signs of a druggie._

_Willis didn't know a lot about the new neighbour, Anton Fischer, only that he had introduced himself a couple of months ago with "I am required by law to inform you that I am a registered sex offender."_

_By 'registered sex offender' he meant twice-convicted paedophile. Willis knows, he's got friends he checked with. The man had quite a notoriety._

_" Get the hell away from my son!" Willis snapped, charging up to Fischer and snatching Jason up into his arms with a yelp of surprise from the boy._

_" Oh, my,"  Fischer murmured to himself, taking a foot back as he looked slightly stunned. The glare Willis gave him could have turned milk sour. It was comparable to a predatory animal moments before pouncing._

_" Daddy, we were just talking."Jason said in a small and startled voice, looking up from his father's prison of arms at his face in confusion. Jason couldn't understand why he was angry now. He hadn't done anything._

_" Stay away from him, Jason." Willis growled, momentarily misdirecting his leer from Fischer to his son then back again to the one who deserved it._

_" And if you ever come near him again, Fischer, I'll fucking kill you." The anger in his voice was thick with the conviction of a promise. He wasn't kidding._

_" Now, now, Mr Todd." Fischer raised his hands, palms open towards him as a sign of peace. He had the goddamn nerve to pull a passive stunt._

_Indicating to the wide-eyed child Willis was holding, he said,_

_"Let's not get carried away. You're scaring your son."_

_Then he had the balls to make Willis look like the bad guy here. He almost put his fist through Fischer's head when he remembered he was holding Jason and withheld the urge that would have been so satisfactory._ _Willis was angry. So angry when the idea of this sicko being near Jason brewed in his mind. He himself wasn't a good person, but he could never do the sickening shit Fischer had been convicted for._ _He wanted to be violent, convince the bastard to never lay his disgusting eyes on Jason ever again with god knew what filth was going through his head, but not with Jason watching. He didn't need to see his dad beat the neighbour bloody and blue. Later...._

_The weight of his son's tiny body in his arms was the anchor he needed to start walking away without bloodshed, leaving Fischer standing there with one last lour in his direction._

_" I fucking mean it. Stay away from him or you'll be sorry." And then he had his back turned, retreating back to their apartment._

_Willis shifted Jason and rested him against his shoulder, completely missing the small wave he gave Fischer. The man gave an apologetic smile and waved back, mouthing 'see you later.'_

_" I don't want you talking to him again, Jason." Willis said to the boy when they were back in their house, the door shut and Jason returned to the ground. The tone of his voice made it clear this was an order._

_" But why, Daddy?" Jason stared up at him with big confused blue/green eyes, colour inherited from his father._

_" Because I told you not to." Willis snapped, much harsher than he'd meant to. Actually, he hadn't meant to snap at Jason at all. Fuck, why was he so bad at explaining things? And how could he even explain to a five-year-old that the nice neighbour was charged with molesting two little boys? And one had been his own fucking nephew._

_" But he's nice." Jason persisted, following his dad into the kitchen when he tried to avoid the topic by retracting his presence. Jason had to powerwalk to keep up, four of his steps adding up to one of Willis'._

_" He's not fucking nice, Jason." Grumbling, Willis opened the kitchen cupboard and grabbed the first glass he spied. He was aching to fill it with vodka or whiskey, but he couldn't get drunk midday with no Catherine to watch their son. Instead, he went for some water to douse a growing migraine that brewed like a storm in his skull._

_" He said he's got a kitten, Daddy!" Jason exclaimed, excited. He loved animals, always had. They were his weakness. Too bad he was allergic to majority of god's critters, but it was also the perfect excuse with a reason at the base to not add an animal to the family._

_Willis was getting irritated by Jason being so exuberant, like a normal kid. His high pitched voice and the way he hung on his heels was ticking him off. The extreme lack of sleep and being as overworked as he was made him far touchier, but that wasn't excuse enough. What the fuck was wrong with him? Why could he not just tolerate his child like every other parent?_

_Willis pressed the glass against his lips and stared at its rim as he continued to listen to his son._

_" He said he'd show it to me!"_

_" He did, did he?" His rapidly lessening patience was evident by his tone. But Jason missed it._

_He kept going on, all excited and eager._

_" He says it's white and fluffy and called Adelie!"_

_" Oh really?" Willis' hand gripped the glass tighter until it trembled._

_" He said he'd let me see it really soon and-"_

_That was when something snapped._

_" Didn't you fucking hear me, Jason?! I said stay the fuck away from him!" Willis dropped the glass as he yelled and it hit the floor right next to Jason, shattering and spraying sharp fragments and drops of water everywhere._ _Jason jumped in fright and backed up into the cupboard so fast it gave a loud hollow thud when his back hit it, rattling the dishes within the draws. His breath shuddered when he looked up at his father, nothing less than terror in his eyes._

_The anger, the haze, faded the instant Willis saw how scared his child was of him when he so much as raised his voice. Jason was shaking and looked like he expected to be hit._ _Why was he expecting that? When had he ever even hit him? He never would. Willis wasn't home most days anyway, if someone had hurt Jason then it was Catherine._

_He and his wife needed to talk._

_" Jason...." Willis tried but he was like a boat trying to cross the sea with tattered sails; hopeless._

_" Just go play in your room and don't go near Mr Fischer again."  He finally said with a deep sigh, turning away from his child and raking his hand through his black locks._ _Jason didn't wait for his dad to change his mind and scampered off as fast as he could, stepping around the chunks of glass as best he could. He glared at the floor on his way to his room, the intensity of his frown far surpassing his age._

_Mr Fischer at least was nice to him and didn't yell. Daddy was always yelling and he was mean._

  _Willis knelt to gather the fragments of glass once Jason had gone. He picked them up delicately between his thumb and index and held them in the cup of his palm. He didn't he focus on the task very much, though, as he couldn't help but hate himself for snapping at Jason._

_And he didn't know how to apologise without fucking it up like he always did._

_It wasn't his son's fault that he was a trusting child around strangers such as Fischer, much as it was a wonder he found it within himself to trust anyone. Catherine and her drugs, himself and the shit he did... That didn't exactly inspire trust._

_Why could he not just be a good father? Why was that so hard for him? Dammit! Another fuck up he could add to the never ending list._

_Maybe Willis couldn't tell Jason that he loved him or be the dad he deserved for that matter, but he sure as hell could protect him from that paedophile by beating Fischer to a bloody pulp.That was going on the itinerary._

_Except he didn't because the next day, Willis was arrested and as the story goes, killed in a prison riot._

* * *

 

" This is a terrible idea on your part." Jason warned, narrowing his eyes behind his hood as the thugs pulled the ropes around his wrists tighter with a jolt, effectively fastening him to a metal pole in the centre of the trashed strip club. Blood, broken bottles and furniture, bullet holes penetrating every respective surface.... oh yes, the Hood had made a mess of this place before he went down. And that was only because he was outnumbered, twenty to one.

And out of ammo.

And Jason wasn't even worried in his current predicament. He remained confident and arrogant as he ever was.

A bald, scar-faced individual with a scraggly blond moustache long enough to be braided on both ends, who had fallen slightly short of a badass Viking look, scoffed loudly and turned his nose up.

" Terrible idea? Looks to me like you're tied up and we've got a bunch of guns pointed at ya." For emphasis, he jabbed Jason in the chest with the muzzle of his handgun, right on the bat. Literally.

They couldn't see Jason smirk but they sure as hell heard the scoff as he tested the ropes for their strength. They were thick and done with good knots. That made this harder, though still far from impossible. 

" Go see an optician, baldie, 'cause you're viewing this situation completely wrong. Lemme reevaluate it for you," the thugs stared at Jason as he cleared his throat for added emphasis of his own.

" _I_ am chilling here against this hella awesome stripper's pole, waiting  for my backup to bring the heat to this little shit show." He glanced at the time on the surprisingly intact digital clock blaring 02:48 pm in bright red letters.

" He's late." Jason remarked with a grin in his voice as he returned his eyes to them.

" Or he's not coming." Baldie spat, shoving the gun into Jason's chest harder, but Jason didn't feel it through his body armour. Or through his pride.

" From what I hear, you talk a big game, Red Hood." He pressed the gun further, leaving a depression in the suit. Jason wondered if his finger perched on the trigger was supposed to be intimidating. He knew Jason was wearing two layers of tri-weave kevlar, right? His little weapon couldn't do shit against that, not to mention his gun.

" So I wonder how much of that was just talk?"

" You think I talk a lot? _Ha_!" Jason gave a cocky bark of mock laughter. " You should meet my big brother. He says he's chatty when in truth, he's got a bad case of verbal diarrhoea."

Baldie cocked him around the head with the butt of his gun to shut him the hell up, effectively snapping Jason's head to the side and leaving a small indentation in the helmet. It didn't hurt, though. At least not enough to intimidate Jason into a helpless captive position. 

" Shut the fuck up, Red, before we stuff something in that big mouth of yours."

Baldie's friend Eyepatch stepped forth with a lusted smile. He looked like a poor man's pirate with that thing over his eye and headscarf. A Viking and fucking _pirate_? Jason was sensing a theme here. He was beginning to feel like the guy who wore a tux to a child's costume party. 

" Wouldn't mind a blowjob tonight, would you boys?" Eyepatch asked over his shoulder and the thugs exchanged crude remarks and dry, breathy chuckles at such an idea. Red Hood, on his knees, sucking them off because they had a gun on his head.

Also finding the humour in that, Jason grinned. They couldn't see the blood on his teeth, courtesy of the blow he'd taken that night.

" You need a cock for that, dickless."

With these guys and their fragile ego, that was taking it a bit far and he knew it. He _knew_ it.

" Why you-!" Eyepatch snapped and went for Jason's helmet to give him a proper blow to the face.  But, he got a bit too close without realising the peril he put himself in when he came right where Jason had been baiting him. Without warning of any kind, Jason threw his legs up when the lurching arm came within his reach, trapped the hand between his knees, and yanked Eyepatch in for a headbutt. All in a heartbeat.

The man's head gave a wet smack when it collided with the red metal of the hood, dropping him like a fly at a picnic. When his body slumped unconsciously to the floor, the thugs just stared at Jason with gaping jaws. They'd never seen anyone move so fast and so effortlessly.

" What's the matter, boys?" Jason cocked his head to the side and smiled after kicking the body closer for them to examine it.

" Don't want my legs around you after all?"

Baldie recovered from the initial shock first and went for the quite tied up Jason. It would be easy, right? He was defenceless, right? Wrong. Fucking wrong. How dare you even assume such a thing?

Jason didn't need his arms free to kick these losers' asses.

With a hard sweep of his leg, Jason knocked Baldie of his feet, kneeing him between the eyes when he came crashing down. He howled in the pain from his broken nose, spurting blood everywhere.

" Get that hooded bitch! But don't  kill him, boss wants him alive!" He shrieked to his men, making his first smart choice of the night when he pulled himself away from Jason, cupping his bleeding face.

Jason couldn't do anything not to give half laugh at their stupidity when they all swamped him at once, actually making taking them down easier for him.

Why weren't the stupid fucks just shooting at him? That'd be the smart thing to do. But by capturing Red Hood, they'd already proven themselves to be on par with the intellectual capabilities of a blobfish.

Jason dealt one guy a high kick to the head and in the same movement, brought his heel down on another. He bucked up against the strip pole they'd tied him to, getting enough support from the surprisingly sturdy thing to kick a thug across the room with both legs.

And still, the dumb shits kept coming.

Kick here, knee to the groin there,  Jason was taking them out with ease because no one had the grey matter to go for a gun instead of throwing themselves at Jason like a bunch of thirsty gold diggers. Jason caught an unlucky bastard with his legs and crushed his throat between his thighs. Increasingly short of breath, he was gasping and slapping his hands at him in a lame attempt to escape the biological prison. Jason sighed at his useless tries and to save the guy the furthered embarrassment of continuing this, dislocated his neck with a sharp twist of his body.

Like the Hydra, when he fell another two took his place. The sort of made Jason think more about Greek mythology when he was fighting them off, specifically about gegenees, the six-armed giants from the ancient epic _Argonautica_.  Like these assholes, they'd been big, strong hulking bruisers, believing they couldn't be beaten, only to be defeated when a tribe called the Argonauts came along.

Ironically, the Argonauts had been led by a chap also named Jason.

Must be a Jason thing to go after the biggest baddies and kick their asses without breaking a sweat. He may have been dwelling too intently on Greek mythology because the rebar that cracked across his shin caught him completely off guard. So much so he couldn't hold the cry of pain.

After finally getting one solid blow in for themselves, the thugs got cocky and regained their balls enough to go at him again. It could have ended in many alternate ways - Jason's death, their deaths, etc - had Batman not chosen that minute the burst in through the window and hurl an onslaught of batarangs at Jason's attackers. There were howls of pain when they met their marks, though none where fatal, as the bat code demanded.

Since Jason was Jason, he couldn't bring himself to express it, let alone admit it, but he felt relieved every time his bat dad exploded into a room and filled it with the screams of their enemies. He grinned under the shielding of his hood. Damn showoff old man. 

Within seconds of being dealt a couple of bat punches,  every thug down for the count and Batman was stepping over their strewn out bodies, cape brushing across them as he went.

" What the hell took you, _dad_?" Jason asked with some sarcasm, cocking a brow that went unseen.

" Break in at Miller's bank. Added ten minutes to my ETA." He grunted, slicing through Jason's binds with one fluid swish of a batarang's sharpened edge.

Jason pulled himself free from the stripper's pole and with the first step, hissed through his grit teeth. He bent to feel his shin, brushing his fingers carefully over it. It was badly bruised but fortunately not broken. He could tell when he rubbed it up and down. No ridges in the bone, say for old healed up breaks. That was good. Surprising, but good.

" I told you to wait for backup, Hood." Bruce said when Jason started walking off the pain in his leg. He limped for a few beats but soon regained control of himself.

" That doesn't sound like me." He mused truthfully with a light smile keeping the corners of his lips up.

" Until we figure out who issued this new hit on you, you can't go galavanting into mob meetings by yourself." Bruce was lecturing him like an actual dad right now and it made Jason roll his opalescent teal eyes.

" Fucking hell, calm the fuck down, B." Jason turned back around to face him, swinging his arms as he did. " I got a new hit on my back every other day and I was here to figure out who had the balls to try it again. One thing leads to another and I'm tied to a pole in the middle of a strip club with my legs around half a dozen guys. But you burst in right in the nick of time, saved my ass, and now all's good."

" _Hood_...." Bruce would have preferred to use Jason's name in place of his alias, but he didn't deem it safe even when half of Gotham's underbelly already knew it. But, Bruce dropped the current topic when he knew he would get nowhere with it and resumed with the more obvious one.

" Did you find any leads?"

" Nope." Jason popped the P, the shift audible even with his hood modulated voice.

" I'm tickin' suspects of my list until I narrow down the culprit. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't any of these buffoons." He gestured to the men on the floor surrounding his feet

Bruce's gaze flitted to them before back to his son. " They tied you up."

" Yesh, sharp observation, world's _greatest_ detective." Jason said sarcastically and his response was the bat glare. That gradual attenuation of the white lenses and ripples across Bruce's brow, it was like running full speed into a brick wall because that glare secretly terrified Jason.

He blew his cheeks out. Fuck Bruce and the way he over analysed everything.

" They said their boss wanted me alive, so I guess they're a bunch of go-getters trying to cash in on the reward for my capture and later termination." Jason gave a breathy whistle as he examined his surroundings. " Y'know, whoever this bastard is, he's offering half a million for my ugly mug. Explains why all of Gotham's goin' ass over teakettle trying to get me." 

Slumping his shoulders barely noticeably, Bruce sighed. _Bruce_ , not Batman. He was sounding like Jason's adoptive father all of a sudden.

" Come home, Red, please. At least until this is over." 

Jason was glad for his hood because it hid the slight raise of his brows. Was Bruce really…. _worried_ about him? He couldn't be.... but it sure as hell sounded like he was. 

Jason reasoned he was probably reading the whole situation wrong so he didn't comment on that.

" I'm not running home to hide behind my bat daddy's cowl. You should know that." Jason retorted, adding bite to his words to make himself seem all big and tough, so Bruce wouldn't worry about him. He didn't need to waste his attention span on fretting over his red sheep when he could be doing more important things.

" We don't know who this is yet, or why they want you delivered to them to kill. All of Gotham is gunning for you and you're by yourself. It's not safe. _You_ are not safe." Bruce pushed in the faint hope it would make Jason see reason. He wasn't treating this matter half as seriously as it was.

" Didn't become an outlaw 'cause I like to play it safe, B." He quite truthfully replied with but it was clear by Bruce's unchanging expression, that the argument wasn't going through. 

This time it was Jason's turn to sigh. 

He opened the air lock that kept his helmet in place with a hiss as the pressure was released, and pulled it over his head. His fringe, that had grown too long for his liking, caught on his hood and slapped him in the face when it fell. He blinked back the strands and brushed them aside hastily, really hoping that hadn't been a flicker of a smile he saw on the Bat's face. 

Jason really needed a damn haircut. 

" I'm not alone, Bats. I've got you and blue bird on speed dial in case things get too rough for me to cope with. I mean, you showed up now, didn't you?"

" There's a chance I won't be available next time. It would be a lot easier to keep you safe if you were by my side and not god knows where."

That seemed to strike a wrong chord with Jason. 

" I can protect myself, B. I don't need anyone looking after me." He snapped back, fingers curling to hooks against the hard cold surface of his hood clasped in his hands.

Bruce saw the error of his wording when the ephemeral moment with no hatchet between them shattered into a million pieces. He shouldn't have brought that up when if there was one thing he had learned about Jason over all these years, it was that he hated when someone implied he couldn't fend for himself.

" That's not what I meant, Jason,"

Oh gosh. Shit got real when they were on first name terms.

" At least have regular check-ins until we catch whoever this is. Please."

Huffing, Jason rolled his eyes so hard the movement ground against the insides of his sockets. Dammit. Bruce said please. He didn't do that for just anyone.

" Fine, Mr parole officer, sir. I'll give you frequent updates as to what I do and when. Sound good?"

Bruce didn't reply to that. In a scarily slow second, he stared at Jason with the whites of his mask narrowing ever so slightly. The world around fell so silent that you could hear a paperclip drop on the other side of the room and Jason couldn't help but wonder, what would happen next?

Then Bruce was walking away. He brushed past Jason on his way out, sending cold chills down his son's body, his son who hadn't been certain what the stare had meant. 

" Just be careful." He ordered more than requested.

And then he was gone into the night, vanished like a prayer into the darkness.

Silence again. 

Jason drummed his fingers on the smooth rounded surface of his helmet, provoked to think after that encounter. 

Part of Jason wished that could have gone differently even, if for an interaction between Red Hood and Batman, that was fairly passive. He had almost wanted to, and could have accepted the offer to go home, if Wayne Manor was home anymore. 

It might sound too dramatic, but home for an outlaw was on the run. 

But there wasn't time to dwell on that nor did he really want to. 

Jason put his hood back on and kicked Baldie in the gut one last time before going off himself. The night was still young and he needed to get the name of the person who thought Red Hood was an easy target to pin a hit on.

* * *

 

" Mr Wayne! Mr Wayne! Can we get a comment those pictures of you and Caitlin Mears?!"

" Are you and Ms Mears in a relationship?!"

" Do you have a comment for-!"

The paparazzi shrieked like gulls on the beach, swooping down and trying for scraps to pick at. Bruce smiled a practised smile and waved, answering a few less private questions every now and again, but mostly worked towards getting to his waiting car by the sidewalk outside Wayne Tower. There happened to be a sea of people snapping pictures, flashes of light from their cameras, and raised voices between him and his goal, however.

Luckily he was a good enough actor to pass the notion that he was completely comfortable in the limelight that came with being Gotham's most boring billionaire.  Internally, though, he was feeling kinda claustrophobic with everyone bumping into him and trying to grab his attention by any means necessary. His bodyguards, that he secretly didn't need, kept the scavengers at bay the best they could but some slippery photographer would always find a way to slip through their fingers.

It hadn't been a very productive day in the office, since Bruce's mind kept wandering back to Jason and this new hit. Everyone was constantly after his son's life and much as that didn't sit well with him, it was part of the vigilante lifestyle Jason had been drafted into. Well, vigilante/outlaw lifestyle.

But this new target was different, an order from a higher acting power who was discreet enough to leave nothing that could lead back to them. They sent the demand for Hood's capture to every soul in Gotham's criminal underbelly, which meant Red Hood would be spotted no matter where he was and that he was in constant danger. And who had the money to give half a million as a reward?

Red Hood would be just fine, Bruce kept telling himself and he believed it when he didn't associate his son's face with the crime lord's mantra. But when he did.... his mind was on overdrive, mulling over everything he knew so far and trying to form connections to possible suspects to catch the perp.

While Jason picked through gangs and 'worked his way through the list', Bruce would be keeping a closer eye on Gotham's elite, since this order came from high up. Though, why one of his peers would want Red Hood dead he couldn't even imagine.

Almost to the open door of his car, Bruce's attention was spiked by someone shoving their way through the crush of people and screaming,

" You killed my son! You _fucking_ killed my son!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> " This isn't fucking over, Wayne." Willis's voice had transformed from it's distrustful, contemptuous timbre to a guttural rumble from somewhere deep within his chest. Bruce recognised it as the anger he himself had been in the throes of when Joker killed Jason. 
> 
> A man, face-to-face with his child's murderer.
> 
> Or so he thought.
> 
> " This is over." Bruce promised him but somehow he knew that wasn't true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What the actual hell, guys? This thing got over two hundred reads and fifty kudos during the first 24 hours after I published it. It motivated me to get off my lazy ass and quickly write up chapter two for ya in record time XD
> 
>  

" You killed my son! You _fucking_ killed my son!"

Bruce took a moment to recognise the man who was making the scene. Dark hair fading in colour, opalescent eyes somewhere between blue and green, mid-forties or early fifties, around his own age.... Bruce had seen his face once or twice in the distant past, or rather, his mugshot. Although, he'd been a lot better built and fifteen years younger when the picture had been taken.

And even after it clicked it took a second or two for Bruce to acknowledge what - _who_ he was seeing.

But he still couldn't believe it.

 _Willis Todd,_ back from the dead. And he was pissed. His face was red and facial muscles contorted into a lour without comparison, except it _was_ comparable to the very similar ones Jason pulled when he was angry enough. The boy could glare like it was his last day alive.

" _You_..." Willis' voice was breaking now that they a foot apart, standing were face-to-face. There were genuine tears glinting in his shifting eyes and Bruce should have reacted, said something, but a thousand things thundered through his cranium at once. Namely hows and whys. 

And for once in his life, he was at a loss for words. This was just so unexpected. Completely out of the blue.

Where the hell had he come from?

".... _killed_ him."

Everything had fallen into silence, even the paparazzi had quit their squawking long enough to stare at the spectacle Willis's outburst had caused. They were undoubtedly mulling over what he'd yelled out in their heads. And how could they not? The words lingered in the air, hanging heavy as if weighed down by lead ballast.

Bruce Wayne had.... killed his son? Of course, they knew it was most likely a hoax, but there was a story there that was definitely more interesting than whatever was between the billionaire and Caitlin Mears.

The damn scavengers started to blast them with photos and questions with all the force of a tsunami.

" What do you mean by he killed your son?!"

" Are you the father of one of his wards?!"

" What's your story, sir?!"

They were getting pushy, shoving into both Willis and Bruce in their uncaring efforts to pick scraps of information and fight over who would get the juiciest story to fill tabloids with. The steely fingers on their hands had become like hooked talons, grabbing at them and tearing. One even ripped a hole into the sleeve of Bruce's expensive suit.

" That's enough!" One of the bodyguards yelled and started shoving them back. 

In the flurry of commotion, Willis didn't budge or really even notice the stir the paparazzi were causing with demanding answers to questions that were none of their damn business. Not a shred of it made it through his haze of anger that shielded the singular notion that swam laps around his head.

This _person_..... 

He could just stare.

Stare at the man whose name Gotham was abuzz with, Bruce Wayne, also the man responsible for his son's death. Some accident abroad is what the official report said. An _accident_. His child was too smart to be killed in an accident. Too stubborn. Whatever had really happened, this rich bastard had caused it.

" Don't you have anything to fucking say?!" Willis demanded angrily, spitting out red embers of hatred from his glare. He swung his arms apart as he yelled, not caring who he hit in the face. Actually, he might have liked to catch someone's jaw with his hand.

" No words?! Nothing you can say? Do you even remember his name?!"

 _Of course, I do!_ Bruce almost snapped, but he couldn't here. They needed to take this unwanted, highly unexpected conversation away from the media's all-seeing eye and go somewhere more private where he could diffuse it as peacefully as possible. 

" Come with me." Seeing no other option, Bruce said to him gruffly and rather loudly, trying to be heard over the incredulous din the crowds were making. It was ear shattering the way it vibrated against his eardrums, really beating the shit out of his training heightened senses. 

Bruce gestured for Willis to follow as he himself got into his car, his security seriously facing some hardships in keeping the masses aback. One of them got shoved to the ground by a particularly strong-armed photographer.

With that unending scowl, Willis considered him for a second, eyes that looked so much like Jason's narrowed as they trained on him. He hated this man. Wanted nothing from him except the impossibility of his son back. But he didn't need to be Bruce Wayne's biggest fan, didn't need to trust him.

He just needed to learn what Jason's true fate had been.

So he complied. Willis did the one thing that didn't go with his nature and he complied, following Bruce into the car, where he uncomfortably took a seat the furthest he could get from his son's.... other dad, he supposed. Adoptive though it may be. And admittedly, he couldn't get far in the confines of the limo. A meter apart was the best he could do.

The door closed with a slam harder than intended and the limo pulled away from the swarms of media, their shouts fading fast as the vehicle picked up speed.

A brief silence saw it fit to follow.

Bruce could tell they were both taking this moment to study one another, look them over and make their respective assumptions. Although, they both already had plenty regarding the other.

Willis was, for lack of a better description, suffered. He was a lot thinner than Bruce would have imagined, but not weak. Muscle structure still remained to add some padding over his bones. His face was aged, creased with wrinkles and the lines left behind by a lifetime of scowling. And freckles dotted the bridge of his nose, thinly dusted over his cheeks.

Just like Jason's freckles were.

His hair was streaked with silvery grey veins of colour, but remained mostly a shade of onyx surprisingly bold for a man of his years.

But what Bruce couldn't get over was how Jason's eyes were a mirrored reflection of Willis's, if somewhat livelier and burden to a devilish glint whenever something occurred to him. They were the same exact shade, complete with the same hazel brown speckles of imperfection amongst the sea of turquoise.

Jason really did look a lot like his father.

" Where have you been?" Bruce finally asked, cutting through the tense silence like a sharpened scimitar would a taut bungee chord. 

" Does it matter?" Willis scoffed, tilting his head and eyeing the other down cynically.

Bruce knew then and there that this man hadn't returned from presumed death for Jason's good. How could he have? The world thought Jason was dead.

" Jason thought you were killed in a prison riot." Bruce patiently responded with instead of hitting the prick like his paternal instincts demanded he did.

Willis didn't humour him with replying to that one, but by the stir in his expression, it affected him somehow.

" What happened to Jason? How did he really die?" _And why didn't you prevent it?_

" There was an accident when we were in Qurac-" Bruce tried putting this as gently as anyone would, when telling a parent how their child was killed, even if the information was falsified, but Jason's ass of a father cut him off mid-sentence.

" Cut the crap, Wayne. Jason didn't die in an accident, he's too smart for that."

Before Bruce could argue the fact that a person's level of intelligence didn't make them invulnerable to accidents, Willis went on,

" He's my son,"

Ah, there was the ownership.

" I deserve to know what really happened to him."

And right behind ownership, was the sense of entitlement. Day one signs of an asshole parent.

" I know this is hard, Mr Todd, believe me, I do," The things Bruce had learned about Willis from Jason, which were admittedly few because of how old he was when his dad "died", spoke volumes of the man's poor, neglectful at best parenting. And still, Bruce tried to keep this civilised enough not to start another scene. He had to tread carefully with this one, until he knew more about Willis's absentee years and why he was back.

" But there was an explosion," he half lied, " Jason got caught in it. He died instantly." If only that were so. Bruce could never forget the wet, rattling rasps for breath in the few minutes Jason was alive for after the warehouse came down on him. The huge indentation in his smashed ribs, limbs twisted and broken, more blood outside his body then in, gutted hip to hip... himself, trying to hold his son together and failing.

Bile built up beneath his tongue, thick and repulsive. He couldn't let his mind to travel back to that torturous memory right now, not when it made him sick to his stomach.

" That's a load of bull." Willis glowered, unconvinced. He was as damn stubborn as his son was, even made the same narrow-eyed expression when he was trying to intimidate someone. Kudos to him, it might have worked if this wasn't Batman he was pulling faces at. 

" How do you figure?" Bruce finally allowed a little hostility into his tone, his patience a dwindling facade he wouldn't be holding up for much longer.

" I just do. I know. He's my son."

Oh wow. He also had Jason's logic when he was pissed or sure of something. Evidence and facts to hell when the men of the Todd family concluded their version of the truth.

" And what do you think happened to Jason that I lied to cover up?" Bruce leaned forward, linking his hands before himself with a 'humour me' expression meant to hide how much Willis was getting under his skin. He was trying really hard not to recount the life Jason had been forced to lead once his parents stopped protecting him. All the awful, nightmarish things he had had to do just to survive...

" I don't know. Maybe _you_ did something to him?" Willis was putting pressure on his words, revealing there were many things concerning Jason's fate that he'd speculated over. Bruce stiffened at the implication in what he said. He did not like what Willis was insinuating one bit.

" The only thing I did was give him a loving home when he was alone and fending for himself. I would never hurt him, so get that out of your head."

" Never _hurt_ him? You fucking got him _killed_!" That temper triggered easily as falling over a tripwire, exploded again and sprayed shrapnel throughout the interior of the limo. Willis lunged at Bruce, trying to hit him, make him hurt in that blind flash of anger, but the billionaire was a thousand times faster than he'd imagined anyone could be. He'd barely gotten within hand's reach of him when Bruce had caught his fist and twisted his arm behind his back with a crack from his newly dislocated shoulder.

Wincing, Willis gasped in pain but still remained to look angry as hell the way he glared at the man who could so easily restrain him. One hand around the back of his shirt, one hand around his wrist, pinning it against his spine, Bruce had him completely immobile. 

" You're not fucking getting away with whatever you did to my son, _Wayne_." He spat, like the surname he included was intended as an insult of the highest power.

" He's not your son, _Todd_." Bruce growled back through his teeth, muscles shaking with the tremendous effort of not ripping the bastard's arm off for everything Jason had had to endure because of him.  

" Alfred," he roughly said to the butler, who was minding his own business as he sat behind the wheel. Although, if he'd heard one word of that transgression, then he must at least be curious bordering on dying for answers. But since it was calm, tranquil Alfred, that probably wasn't the case.

" Stop the car. I think this conversation has gone on long enough." 

" This isn't fucking over, Wayne." Willis's voice had transformed from it's distrustful, contemptuous timbre to a guttural rumble from somewhere deep within his chest. Bruce recognised it as the anger he himself had been in the throes of when Joker killed Jason. 

A man, face-to-face with his child's murderer.

Or so he thought.

" This is over." Bruce promised him but somehow he knew that wasn't true. Alfred pulled up on the side of the road and Bruce all but shoved Jason's father out. Unfortunately, he managed to catch himself before he got a face full of sidewalk and turned back to leer daggers of hatred at the only man who had ever shown kindness towards his son.

" I'm going to find out what you did to Jason." There was nothing but stone cold, steely conviction in the way he said that. But it was hiding something beneath the surface. Perhaps the real reason he was back all of a sudden? Jason had been 'dead' for five years now. If Willis really cared, he would have shown up to confront Bruce long before the first.

" And I'm going to make sure everyone knows who you really are."

Bruce had never felt to so salty - so tempted to cause serious harm to a civilian. Who would have known an older Jason would be so much more infuriating?

He tipped his head, gaze as dark as the bottom of the river Styx homed in on Willis, where it lingered for several beats.

" Good luck with that." And he meant that. Good luck indeed, if he planned on exposing every one of Bruce Wayne's secrets to the world. There were litanies of them hidden within multitudes of a countless number. 

Bruce couldn't bear the sight of him any longer. The door closed and he sat back down angrily with a loud sigh as Alfred pulled away again. They both knew Willis scowled after them long after the limo disappeared from view. 

Bruce slung one arm over the back of the seat and rested the other on the armrest, raising it just enough to pinch the bridge of his nose.

_Dammit._

This made everything ten - _twenty_ times more complicated than they already were with someone from the higher-up gunning for Jason. Jason didn't need this colossal distraction right now, not when he had to focus every grain of his attentiveness on not getting killed. This... this would throw him off the rails, rend him, confuse him, anger him, sidetrack him...  

In theory, Bruce didn't _have_ to tell Jason. Willis would just go off the radar, vanish again to locations unknown. If Murphy's law ever blinked, that is. The part of him, and it was a very large part, that wanted to keep this to himself didn't want to hurt Jason with this new information. 

Or give him the option of another father. But that was admittedly purely selfish of Bruce.

" I have to tell him, don't I, Alfred?" Bruce finally asked, the first of his words lifted by the sigh escaping his lips. And, of course, Alfred replied because there had been no question whether or not he had been listening in.

" Yes, Master Bruce. It will not sit well with the boy if you keep this to  yourself, even if it is only until you discover what Mr Todd is really doing back here." Logical as always, Alfred. The elderly butler watched Bruce from the rearview mirror, something indecisive about his pale grey eyes. As Jason's adoptive grandfather and part-time mother, he didn't look psyched about Willis's reappearance, either.

" Remember, sir. The transgression will be all over the news soon. Master Jason will either find out from you, or from Channel 5 headlines."

Shit. Bruce hadn't even thought of that. Thank god for Alfred and his sharp observations. And he knew from years of collective experience that the roaches working for the media, the _paparazzi_ , would have the news of the billionaire confronted by a raving madman, accusing him of murdering his son, for all the world to see within two hours. Three at the most.

" You're right, Alfred." Bruce showed the bridge of nose some mercy and released it from the relentless pinch. He straightened and met the butler's gaze in the mirror.

" Can we please take a detour?"

" Where to, sir?" Alfred arched a silvery brow a fraction as if he didn't already know. Bruce didn't say anything about him asking when he had so clearly had planted the seed of the idea into his mind.

" To find Jason before he sees this on the news somewhere." _Or,_ Bruce thought, _even though it was_ an impossible second option, before Willis finds him.

  

Willis couldn't tear his hateful stare from the retreating form of the limo, even after it disappeared over the hill, leaving nothing, not even the soft purr of its engine behind for him to despise. 

 _So that was Bruce Wayne_ , he bitterly thought to himself. The man who had picked his son  up off the streets for no reason, kept him for a few months in the isolation of his mansion's inescapable walls, and then he mysteriously died. In a foreign country, no less. Where Gotham's PD couldn't do shit to investigate Jason's death.

Everything about this chain of events screamed suspicious. And not to sound too much like a conspiracy theorist, but this was two well-photoshopped pictures away from being a full-blown cover-up story. And he was not about to let Bruce Wayne get away with whatever he really did to Jason.

There was something more to this. Willis knew there was.

He could have stayed in the street all day, glaring, but people were starting to stare, especially after the limo pulled up on the sidewalk and tossed him out. And he'd never been one for being watched by a number of strangers. It was one in a multitude of things that separated him and Wayne.

Willis straightened his hoodie and started walking, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. He was heading towards the cemetery, where someone had told him his son's body now was. Probably just dumped into a shallow hole with barely an inch of dirt to cover him, because he really couldn't expect much more from that stain of a human being.

It was Anton Fischer all over again.

Willis couldn't exactly consider himself a prime example of a half decent person, but at least he was a predictable as an open book. People like Bruce Wayne.... there were secrets to him. So many secrets. You could just tell by that fake smile. Willis had lived in Gotham all his life and knew well enough when someone's expressions were a meaningless facade with nothing genuine to them. 

You can't trust someone like that.

And by god, if it was the last damned thing he ever did, he was going to find out what Wayne had really done to his son. 

To Jason.

* * *

 

Right now, he may have been Bruce Wayne on the outside, but he was always Batman on the inside. At least, when it came to bypassing Jason's top-of-the-line security systems without tripping a single alarm. It wasn't that he wanted to slip into the safehouse undetected and sneak up on Jason, it really wasn't. It was force-of-habit.

And also, he knew Jason well enough to be aware that at 14:45, he would be fast asleep on the couch and not bother to open the door, if he ever even heard the two knocks Bruce never initiated. Yes, two. OCD demanded he always knock twice with a hard fist, not three times and not one.

_Two._

As it happens, Bruce had been exactly right about Jason's schedule. When he entered the apartment as silently as a mute phantom, he found his son sprawled out on the couch, on his back with a hand laid on his abdomen, dozing the daylight hours away. Actually, it was more of a deathly slumber he'd fallen into, eyes encircled with purple/black circles. Quite panda-like, really. 

Comatose as he looked, Bruce could tell by the soft intakes of air passing betwixt his slightly parted lips, that he was alright. Just sleeping. There were bruises on his face, too, a split lip, and a butterfly stitch keeping a gash on his cheek sealed. A bandage was wrapped around his wrist. Not a cast, just a bandage. He'd probably sprained it or something like that.

All in all, Jason was in an amazingly good state, considering he spent the night beating on Gotham's worst and unwisely being the uninvited guest to numerous mob boss meetings. 

Even in sleep this deep, with the slight crease of a frown on his forehead, he didn't look like he was actually getting any rest. Be it subconsciously, consciously, unconsciously, Jason was always tensing for something. Always expecting something to shift, to change. He'd been that way since the day Bruce met him and he suspected it was a deeper rooted issue than just paranoia or distrust, but had never actually delved further into it. It might have been the biggest repetitive mistake of his existence, but he preferred to keep things under the rug.

" Jason," Bruce tried his name but didn't dare go close enough to touch him, lest he scare Jason with his abrupt appearance or worse, have to initiate physical contact, which he sucked at unless he was punching someone.

Jason stirred, palmed at his eyes tiredly, but didn't wake up. He mumbled something sleepy and incoherent and rolled onto his side, tucking his arm under his head as a pillow. His hair was an absolute mess, comparable only to a raven's nest that had suffered the worst of a thunderstorm.

He really did need a haircut.

" _Jason_." Bruce sighed as he said it more sternly. He was not pleased by having to wake his son for news as unpleasant as the return of the man who abandoned him when he was a meagre five-years-old.  Or would Jason deem it as unpleasant? Bruce thinks so, but he could never really be sure about this particular Robin. He had a history of unreasonably reacting to things.

Maybe this wasn't such a good-

Jason's lashes began to flutter as softly as the beats of a butterfly's wings, it was a delicate movement really, until his sights locked on the dark figure looming over him with the sun against his back, hiding his face with its bright glare. Jason's eyes snapped open and before his brain spent a second to consider anything, his combat trained body took over and it was muscle memory when he tried to bury his knuckles in Bruce's face.

The punch he threw was caught mid-air and Bruce curled his fingers around Jason's clenched hand, practically enveloping the smaller fist. Not smaller by much, though.

" It's just me, Jason. Relax." He let go of his son's hand, which Jason withdrew quite hastily with a sour expression.

" Jesus fucking Christ, could you fucking not sneak up on me?" Jason was agitated as he propped himself up, when secretly he was harbouring feelings of immense shame from the fact that Bruce had snuck past all his defences and security while he'd been asleep. He'd been trained better than that.

Bruce, of course, knew what was going through his head. He knew all there was to know about Jason, but he didn't say anything to rattle his son any more than he had to. Since this _was_ Jason, he would be unsettled if Bruce could quote his mind's inner workings.

" I'm sorry. But I need to talk with you."

" Yeah?" Jason brushed his hair back and out of his face, raking his fingers through the thick ebony locks as he yawned loudly.

" Don't worry, I didn't kill anyone last night. But I did _kill_ it out there last night." Jason explained with a grin that was both troublesome and a hint proud. Proud that he'd managed another night without taking a single miserable life, because it's what Bruce wanted him to do. _Expected_ him to do. And it meant a considerable amount to Jason, maybe not the world but a lot nonetheless, that Bruce still had expectations for him that didn't include going on a murder spree. At least not always.

It meant he hadn't completely lost faith in his biggest mistake.

" I know." Bruce mumbled after him as Jason rose, straightened his scrunched up jeans, didn't bother scrounging the floor for a shirt with which to cover his bare torso with, and headed for the bathroom. Bruce followed him a meter behind.

He didn't let his gaze land even once the surgical Y-shaped autopsy scar that sliced across Jason's chest and down his stomach. Bruce knew that unlike his countless other scars, his son was extremely self-conscious about that one. Never mind that he had never said so, Bruce had no doubt that was the case.

" So what do you want?" Jason inquired, turning the faucet to allow a stream of water from the tap. It was suitably cold to wake him when he splashed it across his face. The chill made him gasp inwardly, but he couldn't let Bruce see him acting like a wuss. The droplets rolled down his face and dripped off his chin to leave wet trails on his chest, over his scar gone purple in the cold. 

" There's something I need to tell you and...." Bruce paused, " and you're not going to like it."

At least, he thinks Jason is not going to like it.

He... hopes?

 _Just like pulling off a band-aid_ , Bruce told himself, _do it fast._

It would cause minimum damage if he did it that way.

So where was his courage now? That courage that served to make Batman the terror that kept Gotham's criminals glancing over their shoulders?

" Oh, no," Jason made a pouty expression, spreading Colgate across the bristles of his toothbrush. Like last night, he wasn't in a serious mood. " Are you not my real daddy? Or did you forget my birthday?" 

He stuck the toothbrush in his mouth and started running it along his teeth, white foam soon dripping from his lips. He stared at himself intently on the surface of the cracked mirror above the sink, probably wondering how the hell he got away with so few injuries after the strives he caused the previous night.

Actually no. As part of his every morning routine, Jason was fixated on his reflection, busily hating how much he looked like - 

" Willis Todd, your father. He's back." 

Jason choked on his toothpaste. 

__

* * *

 

_" Mommy?" Tears overflowing from his eyes, Jason's small hands were on his collapsed mother's side, trying to shake her awake from where she was sprawled out on the bathroom floor with a heroin needle in her arm. Her messy, sweaty red hair was scattered in a broad arch across the dirty tiled floor and her freezing cold skin was ashen, pale like chalk or flour._

_Pale like death._

_And Jason, for all his five years, couldn't tell if she was breathing. Didn't even know to check her airways._

_" Mommy, please," he sniffed, " wake up. You can't sleep now. Not before Daddy comes home."_

_Because he was sure Daddy was coming back. Like he always did... eventually. He'd just gone away for a while but he wouldn't leave them. He wouldn't leave Jason and his mommy._

_At this point in time, Jason wasn't well-versed enough on ODs to know what to do, but that would all change soon. That couldn't help him now, though, when Catherine started coughing violently and choking on her own vomit. She grasped for breath desperately, reaching out a shaking white hand to her son, wide eyes fixed on him like she was making a demand he couldn't hear._

_" M - Mommy?" Jason backed away, scared. Before he knew it, his back was against the wall and his breath shuddering almost as loudly as she tried to breathe. Clear bile bubbled past her teeth and dripped in thick strands to the ground. Her gasping was getting worse, rougher and more strained._

_" Mommy, what's wrong?" He was tearfully pleading with her to tell him so he could do something - anything to help her._

_But he didn't know._

_He just didn't know what to do._

_His parents didn't have any friends who Jason could go to for help... but he had a friend. One friend. Mr Fischer. Mr Fischer had told him that he could come around any time he wanted, especially if he ever needed anything._

_Jason didn't ask Catherine about this. She couldn't give him guidance if she wanted to. Fast as his little legs could carry him, he sped out of the bathroom, through the dump of an apartment, and outside into the mouldy hall. Mr Fischer lived two doors from them and within seconds, Jason was hammering at his door with both his balled up tiny fists._

_Mr Fischer's head popped out almost the second he started pounding._

_" J - Jason? " He was taken aback by the state of the teary five-year-old completely in the throes of hysterics. " Jason, what's wrong, lad?"_

_"  It - it's M - Mommy-" The poor little thing could hardly get the sentence from his mouth, much less keep it from shuddering wildly. When he couldn't word it, Jason gestured with a trembling, extended hand to the thrown open door of his apartment._

_Fischer knew Jason's mother well enough to know what had the little one panicking and in hysteria this violent. He was shaking, crying, not breathing right. His hair was in his face and sticking to his cheeks because of the salty deltas down his face that held strands captive._

_" She - she - she's fallen again!"_

_" It's okay, Jason."  Calm voice cutting through the fear, Fischer took him by the shoulders comfortingly, kneeling to look him in the eyes. It seemed to console Jason a fraction because his breathing eased ever so slightly and a few less tears rolled._

_" Let's get her some help. It's going to be okay." Fischer assured him, rising back to his feet and enveloping the small hand in his own skeletal one. He could feel Jason's fingers respond to the touch in the form of curling around his._

_Without another word, Jason lead him back to his apartment._


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> " He thinks you're dead, Jason."

Jason choked on his toothpaste.

The sudden, harsh gasp of air near had him swallow his toothbrush. He spat the thing out and it clattered to the tiled floor somewhere, violent coughs wracking his body. He leaned one hand heavily on the edge of the sink for support, the other balled up and against his mouth.

Not sure whether or not he should step in or even touch Jason, Bruce watched from aside, asking himself what do people do in situations like this?

Better yet, what would _Alfred_ do?

Alfred would pat him on the back to encourage steady breathing, but just as Bruce reached out his hand, Jason slapped it away so hard his wrist snapped back. Bruce didn't try it again.

Coughing soon subsided and breathing back under control, Jason roughly wiped the foamed up toothpaste from his lips and the corners of his mouth and turned back to stare at Bruce.

Born of such a rare fete, the look of for once being okay that had glinted in Jason's eyes mere milliseconds before had vanished, sent running in terror by the darkness that forced itself over the turquoise.

" Don't fucking joke about that, Bruce." Jason hissed, even when his adoptive father never joked about anything. Especially something like this. It would be purely sick of him to do.

" _He_ is _dead_. Has been for a long time, so he can't 'be back'." There were toxins in Jason's voice, oozing out of every word. Bruce couldn't help but wonder how much anger towards Willis festered inside Jason, when he could express such an extent through a simple two sentences.

The whole ride over Bruce had carefully considered which words he would use, what he would say. But now? His tongue felt paralysed as it sat in the warm cavern of his mouth.

But he _needed_ to say something.

" He isn't dead, Jason." Bruce said as gently as he could in regards to this touchy matter. But the tone couldn't take the anger off Jason's face, couldn't settle his heavy breaths or hide the teeth he bared without noticing.

" I ran into him today. We spoke briefly." Bruce paused, not sure if he should add any more to that which was already an abundance for Jason to take in.

" About you."

" No." Jason shook his head unceremoniously, waved fringe descending into a worse state of dishevelment. He turned back to the wash basin and started to dry his hands with the towel without sparing force, like he was trying to scrape the skin from his muscles.

Something in him couldn't look at Bruce. 

And it was a very strong something.

" No." He repeated. " No, you couldn't have seen him because he _is_ dead." Jason's knuckles cracked the more he twisted the towel around his fists. He had given up drying himself. Bruce could hear him as he ground his teeth together and didn't miss the way the mirror's surface showed the raw denial on his son's face, brought about by a myriad of painful memories involving his biological father.

The abandonment issues, the neglect, the abuse... 

Bruce understood what was going through Jason's head. It was likely the one thing that had kept Jason from viewing himself as completely worthless in Willis's eyes was the notion that the only reason he had never come home was that he was dead. Not that he walked out on his wife and then five-year-old child.

And now that tiny fragment of twisted comfort had fallen to shambles.

" Th - that's why he left and never came back. Because he was... _dead_. He can't... be alive.... N... Not after all this time."  

Bruce sighed softly and Jason closed his eyes, scrunching up his brow with the effort. Bruce didn't make any indication that he had noticed the strenuous way Jason was stringing sentences together or the deceptive tear rolling down his cheek that allowed a glimpse of how sore the topic of Willis was for him.

Jason wiped it away quickly as it had come.

" I'm sorry, Jason." Bruce laid a hand on his bare shoulder and wasn't rejected this time. But not being rejected didn't mean the touch was appreciated, just tolerated it seemed.

" But you know I wouldn't lie to you about this." As he said that, Bruce wondered if Jason would have preferred this was a sick joke on his part. Maybe.

" I know." Jason sniffed then cleared his throat immediately after, as if the burst of harsh sound was meant to erase the brief lapse into vulnerability. It was gone but not forgotten.

" What did the prick want?" Hand falling off his shoulder as he moved to face Bruce again, Jason was sounding more like himself. Or, the person he forced himself to be. The weakness was gone.

Or was it hidden?

" And where the hell has he been for fifteen years?" 

" I don't know. We briefly discussed you... then argued." He decided not to add the part about the physical confrontation yet. Unless, of course, Jason really needed to hear that Bruce had hurt Willis. 

But he may not want to be what could be perceived as fought over.

" Spoke about _me_?" Jason raised his brows and pushed some cynical smile Bruce had seen all too many times in the past. It was a disguise more prominent than his hood.

 " Y'mean my old man remembered I exist?" He gave a hollow humourless laugh, his grin too bright and too forced as he grabbed a semi-clean t-shirt off the floor and pulled it over his head. Over his scars. Again, he was hiding.

Was he even aware of it or was this subconscious? 

" Wonder of wonders. Tell me, did he also remember my name or just refer to me as _oops_?"

There was such a quantity of spite, bitterness exuding from Jason right now that Bruce realised all those times he'd thought his son hated him were nothing compared to what it was like when he actually hated someone. In a strange, twisted sense, this was... comforting?

" He called you Jason." Like Willis would have been expected to. Bruce wasn't sure that meant much when Jason was being this defensive and still he said it.  And as exceedingly as he didn't want to continue with this line, he did,

" And he called you his son." That he really tried to cushion before he put it down. 

Jason's smile faded and his features adopted an expression similar to the aftermath of receiving a surprise punch from a family member. He stalled what he was busying himself with like he'd been frozen.

And there was that pained vulnerable Jason again. The one that hid beneath layers of anger and sarcasm.

" H.... he called me... S... _His_ son?"

Bruce nodded once.

" Yes. He did."

Silence followed. Not the usual 'no talking' sort of quiet, but a silence that you could drown in. It was painful. No. Torturous was a word more capable of describing it. Jason stared down at the ground, arms hanging limply by his sides, fists slowly, methodically opening and closing.

_...  Son . . ._

A thousand thoughts were stirring in his head and he could make sense of none of them.

He _hated_ Willis. Hated inheriting his genetics, wearing his face, bearing the burden of his last name... 

So being called 'his son' didn't mean anything to Jason. _Nothing_. The only thing it did was anger him that Willis thought he could call him that. He lost that right when got himself arrested and abandoned his son into the taloned clutches of Gotham's most disgusting breed of people. 

And what if it had meant something? Made some minuscule part of him hopeful? Warm in a freezing cold way?

Well, then those feelings were misplaced and very, very wrong.

Bruce hated himself for first bringing this down on Jason, then being unable to do anything to lift its burden. He could stand by and watch. He'd only ever seen Jason wordless, lost, confused, _hurting_ ,  like this twice in his life. 

When Batman refused to kill Joker for him and when he.... opened up about something in his past.

One of those times he walked away, the other Jason had just wanted his presence, not anything he could say that wouldn't make it better.

" Did he say anything else?" Jason finally came out of his trance and demanded that with the hardness creeping back into his voice. Defences were up again.

This really wasn't the time to bring up those accusations Willis had made. It was too much for this afternoon. A lot of this might have actually been too much for this afternoon. He acted so independently, like such a reckless, stubborn wildcard that Bruce tended to forget Jason had some very tender emotional weak spots.

Like anything concerning Willis Todd, for example. 

" Not really." Bruce half lied. 

" Good." Jason grunted. He was still wearing his holsters from the previous and he went for the helmet he'd stashed on the mostly barren shelving mounted on the wall. Bruce noticed the Red Hood's most iconic feature sat nestled next to an old picture of Batman and Robin. 

Dick would have called that adorable and seized Jason in an inescapable octopus hug, calling him 'such a softie'. Bruce knew because it happened to him whenever he let his guard down and acted even a hint sentimental.

" Where are you going, Jason?" Bruce was worried as he inquired, watching Jason's hands working in a blur to tie up the criss-crossing corset of laces winding up his boots. His hood waited for him on the couch cushions that had been his nest up until very recently. 

Jason didn't look up to reply. He kept his eyes fixed so hard on his task that it hurt.

" _Out_. I still need to find out who wants to kill me and I'm wasting my time thinking about _him_."

Bruce sighed inwardly. Damn, this had gone badly. But could it have really gone well? 

" Are you alright, Jason?" Bruce asked softly, although he didn't have much experience with that line. It seemed most appropriate for the situation. Jason didn't reply, just grunted 'yes'.

" For what it's worth," and he was sure it wasn't very much, " I'm sorry."

" What's there to be sorry about, _Dad_? This is Willis's fault, not yours."

Bruce winced at the hostility behind 'dad'. Jason was trying to enforce a point. That he, in fact, wasn't the son of Willis Todd. He could keep telling himself that, but he couldn't run from his own reflection for long.

" I'll find out where he's been and why he's back-"

" _Don't_." Jason straightened, boots laced up so tight that whether he still had circulation was debatable.

" I just... want to forget about this. Okay? Can I please just forget about this? He might be alive but he's still dead to me." 

Bruce didn't know why it was exactly, but that pleading tone was no different to the night Jason with tears in his eyes, practically begged him to shoot Joker point blank.

He considered his son and his request quickly before giving his answer. Much as he had no fondness towards Willis, he had to think about Jason's long-term sake. If they were going to progress anywhere from this, there could be no grey areas. Make sure he knew all aspects he needed to.

Including the biggest one.

" He thinks you're dead, Jason."

Again, Bruce had chosen the wrong thing to say and noticed too late.

" He let me think he was dead for _fifteen_ years!" Jason threw his arms apart in the warningless outburst and Bruce tried hard not to be reminded of his earlier conversation with Willis. He wasn't phased even when Jason came right up to him, glaring like he was challenging Bruce to a fight. He was trying to look strong and unbreakable. 

" I'm just returning the fucking favour. Give it another ten years and I'll pop out of nowhere to ruin his whole entire fucking decade." Jason's nostrils were flared and his muscles shaking from torrents of anger. He was far from done.

" I don't owe him anything, okay? I don't. Especially not the knowledge that I'm no longer rotting in the ground because he deserves to think I'm dead and by fucking god, I hope he thinks he's the reason. If he hadn't fucked up to phenomenally, just managed not to screw over Two-Face, I wouldn't have had to do all those things to take care of Mom! Every fucking thing I - I - _don't_ \- owe - _him_ \- _any_ -" Jason's breath was hitching and catching in his throat, the way it did when he couldn't express everything during his ranting or when he was trying to force someone to understand his point of view.

Or most often, right before he had a panic attack.

And of course, Bruce understood. If anything, he agree with Jason's reasoning but not the state it was winding him into. When Jason got hysterical, Jason got dangerous. And dangerous Jason was a threat to not only Gotham's safety, but also his own.

His hands lurched out and took Jason by his shoulders, holding his trembling body still and making him look at him. Bruce's expression was cool and non-judgemental. 

" You're right. You don't owe him anything, Jason. _Nothing_. Whatever you choose to do or not do, that's up to you."

Did Bruce just _agree_ with him? That wasn't right.

Eyes narrowed and distrustful, Jason studied his face, searching for any hints that he wasn't serious or that he was lying. 

Jason wasn't sure he found anything like what he was looking for when he pulled out of the hold and grabbed his helmet. Tucking it under his arm, he headed for the window instead of the door. Of course, he was going to leave through the far more inconspicuous fire escape.

Before leaving, however, Jason turned back to Bruce. He tried to look angry but he couldn't hide how much this had rattled his cage. _Upset_ him.

" Leave this alone, okay? I don't want you digging into where he was and why. I... I don't want to know." 

" I won't if you don't want me to."

Jason knew him better than to not persist further.

" _Promise_ me you won't."

Bruce hesitated but held Jason's gaze, something that made it hard to do what he was about to.

" I promise." That hadn't even been a half lie. It was a full-blown, _very_ necessary lie.

Jason didn't say anything more and within seconds, he was gone, leaving Bruce in the empty safehouse with no doubt in his mind that Gotham's criminal underbelly were in for one hell of a beat down tonight. If they thought Jason was scary when he was fairly non-angry, they hadn't seen a thing yet. 

Bruce should have gone after him, if he had been anyone but Jason. Jason didn't need hugs and words of comfort as they had never worked on him.  He needed something to punch until he'd worked through his anger and returned in a more reasonable state.

Then they could discuss where to go from here.

In the meanwhile, Bruce would be going against Jason's very specific wishes and finding out exactly where Willis had been these past several years and why he was back because it was all too coincidental.

If Bruce was supposed to believe this new hit had nothing to do with him reappearing out of locations he wouldn't disclose, then he certainly didn't. However, there wasn't a chance on heaven or earth that Willis knew his son was alive and much less, that he was Red Hood, so it wasn't a matter of collecting the reward for his capture and quite honestly, he couldn't imagine Willis would actually do that to Jason.

He may not trust him and the man may be a deadbeat and an ass, but the way he'd been reduced to tears and anger at Jason's death, Bruce had no question that a part of him did truly love Jason. 

But in the real world, love meant very little and there was definitely more here than meets the eye.

* * *

 

" Y'know, kiddo, your mom woulda lost it with that Wayne guy. People think I'm the violent one, but she was like an attack dog. Remember when that guy snapped at you for feeding his pitbull?" Willis shook his head with a breathy whistle. " Poor bastard. I've never seen Catherine make a grown man cry."

He leaned harder against the cold, smooth surface of the headstone, sitting back-to-back with it on the glossy grass, damp with the memory of earlier rain. He'd stared at the delicate gilded engraving for as long as he could stomach the sight of the meaningless words, but it furthered the appalling notion that his son, his child, was dead. 

Being on the other side of the grave, not facing it, was all Willis could do to keep himself from crawling in there with Jason.

" The dog cried too." He gave a humourless laugh that could only translate as pain and sorrow when it came out. God, how could he have let this - _all_ of this happen?

 " Too bad she started spending so much time drunk or drugged up," Willis went on. " She might have been there to keep you safe all those times I wasn't. Protected you from people like Fischer and Wayne....." Quietly, he sighed, mind drifting to the past, which seemed so very long ago that it was more of a fiction out of touch than a memory.

The sun was beginning to sink into the horizon, dip-dying the sky deep orange and dark pink in the wake of its descent. Veins of colour stretched across the fading baby blue, reaching out endlessly as if something was always beyond its grasp. In the face of nightfall, Gotham's true self would emerge and all who could not fight it best hide. 

But Willis couldn't dwell on the fear the darkness brought with it. The only thing that entered his mind was the first time Jason saw a real sunset. He'd been two, barely possessed a basic understanding of the English language, and he'd been beyond captivated by the pastel colours. He'd stared wide-eyed out of the window until it was pitch black then cried because he was scared the light would never come back.

Right now, Willis understood the impending dread of being stranded in the darkness without chance of getting out. He knew what Jason had meant now.

" But it wasn't her fault, Jay. I mean, I got her into drugs and alcohol. Before me, Catherine was a straight-A college student with a promising future and a bright career path. If I hadn't shown up and ruined everything, she'd be one of Gotham's top surgeons. She wanted to be a surgeon, you know? And she could have if I hadn't fucked her life up like I fucked up yours." 

Willis turned to face the back to the headstone, resting his hand on the top of it and tracing the subtle curves. He breathed out slowly and deeply, swallowing back the mouthful of sorrow and guilt these memories never came without.

" And if I'm honest, Jay... I do regret it. If I could go back twenty or so years, I'd make sure I never met your mom, make sure she had a better life that didn't end at the point of a heroin needle." Again he swallowed heavily, strain building on his words and anchoring each one. If he blinked even once he was sure it would make the build up of tears descend.

" But I don't.... I _never_ regretted you, Jason. You're the only good thing that ever came from me and her being together. I just.... I should have let you know that at least once. I -  _you_ thought I hated you, didn't you? You died thinking I hated you and now?" He laughed without conviction, on his knees before his son's grave and unable to find the words. He couldn't bring himself to say he loved Jason even when he was dead.

What kind of a fucked up parent couldn't do so much as that?

" Now, I can never make it better." There was no point to it really, but Willis reached out and hugged the headstone, resting his cheek on its cool surface that quickly became damp from his tears. It was suitable, that the cold rock was all he had left of his son to hold as it was none warmer than any time he had ever hugged Jason. 

Which he might never have done.

" Now I can't ever make you understand why I had to leave you. If there is an afterlife, you're going to spend it thinking I walked out on you.... But don't worry, I will find out what really happened to you and I'll make Bruce Wayne regret he ever laid eyes on you." 

* * *

 

" - And then after fifteen goddamn years he has the gall to not be dead!" The drug dealer whose face Jason buried his fist screamed out raw agony as his nose went shattering under the blow, blood spurting through the air already thick with the moans of his victims.

" I mean - what kind of a person does that? Let's his kid think he's dead for over a decade then pops up like nothing happened?!"

Wrapping a fistful of the man's coat around his hand, Jason hurled him across the room and into the solid brick wall with a hard wet _smack_. He fell unconscious into the sea of his like-minded compatriots, who had thought today was a good time to go for Red Hood. And if he wasn't unconscious then he was smart enough to play dead.

" Said kid gets murdered and then his _dad_ fucking - he - he-" _Goddammit_! Jason didn't even know how Willis had reacted to his death.

A shrug was probably all he gave. No. Definitely less than that because the five-year-old he abandoned wasn't worth even a small range of movement like a shrug.

" You're fucking crazy, Red Hood!" Terror-stricken, a dealer with both legs broken dragged himself away from the raving outlaw as he screeched the obvious at Jason. He was leaving a bloody trail behind him.

" And that's another thing -" Jason grabbed him by the ankle and he screamed in sheer horror more than pain when he was pulled back towards the madman of a gunslinger.

" Why is it always something wrong with me?!" Jason hoisted him up and slammed him into the wall effortlessly, hand wrapped around his throat, fingers burrowing deep against his trachea. Faces inches apart, the man could feel the wrath radiating from behind the hood in all-consuming waves. It couldn't be a person behind that mask. It had to be an entity of hatred. 

" You're crazy! You're a mistake! You're worthless! You belong in Arkham! Oh, you're so _pretty!_ Expect it! Those fucking scars make me sick! They're ugly! I fucking know they're ugly, okay?! I don't need you to remind me!" With every sentence, Jason threw punch after punch into the man's broken face until his clenched fist was sleek blood, splattered up his arm.

And still, it wasn't enough. He was still angry.

" The problem is always me!" Shaking, he was shaking harder and harder until he couldn't control where his punches landed. He missed the guy's head and instead hit the brick behind him with a _crack_.

" _God_ dammit!" Jason probably broke a knuckle there, not that the pain could make it past the rage to the registry.

" _See_? It's always me fucking up!"

He threw his victim several meters away but didn't leave him there to suffer alone. Jason went straight back up to him and slammed a kick into his gut. He screamed so loudly it shook the foundations the warehouse was set upon but Jason didn't hear.

" Makes sense why he left, doesn't it?" Another kick. " He was so ashamed of his slutty little son that he couldn't bear seeing him!" 

_Kick, kick, kick, kick._

" That's. Why. He. _LEFT_!"  Jason was screaming by now but the drug dealer at the mercy of his boot had stopped. Jason hadn't even noticed that in the midst of his rage, the guy had been knocked unconscious. He hadn't heard those last things... or more likely, none of them above his own pounding heart and terror.

The rage and self-loathing was still going strong, flowing through him and making him tremble. But Jason wasn't so out of control that he didn't know if he kept taking his crippling insecurities out on these lowlives, he would kill them. All of them.

That was a tempting outlet but he had promised Bruce, his _father_ , that he was going to do better. Or try to. He was such a colossal disappointment for his first dad that he would be damned if he was that to the second.

At least not to the same extent.

Sighing in more than frustration, Jason started walking away before he broke his promise and couldn't turn away any more. The staggering weight he'd dragged behind him since he was five years old weighed heavier than ever before and he was sure nothing could lessen the burden. 

He hated himself for feeling this, but it hurt that Willis was back now and worse, remembered his son. He wanted to tear out chunks of his hair for admitting that he had once missed him. He needed to punch someone or thing whenever he was inclined to know where he had been.

But he didn't want to know because as he kept telling himself, he didn't care. Willis couldn't make him care. He couldn't.

Jason didn't care. 

He'd grown out of caring about his crappy formative years, he didn't spend one worry on any of it anymore.

So why did it hurt when Jason remember that he was the reason Willis abandoned Catherine? Jason was why she had died. Because her husband was so deterred by the repulsive little creature she'd wasted bringing into the world, that he wasn't there to take care of her when she needed it. And when Jason did everything he could to take care of her? Well, Catherine must have died from shame and disgust before the drugs took her.

But _at least_ Jason couldn't be the reason Willis had returned to Gotham after all these years.....

Because to his father, Jason wasn't worth coming back for.

And he himself might agree with that.

* * *

 

_Giggling like he hadn't had a reason to since Daddy left, Jason tickled the cat's soft white belly as it rolled around on its back and waved its fluffy paws in the air. She was purring and meowing loudly, joyously, and her slit blue eyes seemed to smile up at him. She was unusually adapt to people playing with her but Jason didn't think anything of that._

_Maybe Adelie was just a very social cat and had a lot of friends?_

_Fischer had told Jason that Adelie had said she wanted to be his friend and like he'd promised, Fischer let Jason come to see her on one of the many afternoons when Catherine was drinking and not paying a crumb of attention towards who her child spent his time with._

_Jason loved her, of course, but he preferred spending his day with the neighbour because Fischer always had time to play games with Jason and talk to him instead of yelling like Daddy did._

_It had been a couple months now since Willis left them and Jason had gone so far as to wonder if God had made him go away so he could have a nice father like Fischer? But he hadn't said anything about his speculations to Fischer because he was scared he would leave too. After all, Catherine had said this was all Jason's fault in one of her drunken fits. That if he hadn't been born, Willis wouldn't have had to go._

_Jason didn't understand what he'd done but he had wanted to. Maybe if he knew, he could make it better? But Mommy had screamed at him to get outside when he tried to ask her._

_Jason had sat in the hall against the wall for.... He didn't know how long, but he'd dozed off and when he woke up, he was in Fischer's house, placed in his bed. Fischer had made him breakfast, something Jason hadn't had for a long time, and had explained that when he came home from work, Jason had been freezing in the hall so he'd brought him inside._

_All in all, it might have been the nicest thing anyone had ever done for Jason._

_But that had been yesterday and Jason hadn't been home yet. Catherine wouldn't have taken to count his absence and he didn't really want her to yell at him again. In case she was still mad at him, Jason decided to give her time to forgive him alone. And if forgiveness was out of the question, then hopefully her drugs would make her forget._

_" She likes you." Fischer remarked from where he sat by on the edge of the couch, watching Jason play with Adelie. Something his parents never seemed to do, Fischer was smiling at Jason warmly. He looked happy or was it content?_

_" I like her too." Jason confessed with a grin so broad it showed his small white milk teeth and the singular dimple on his right cheek. If there was a demand to describe him with a word, chuffed might be the one._

_Fischer clicked his tongue for Adelie to come to him. She was well taught and immediately responded, rising elegantly to her paws and padding over with her tail curled high above her head. Jason thought there was a comedic, cartoony element to how she carried herself._

_" Meow." Adelie bent all four of her legs at once and in one mighty bound, landed next to Fischer on the couch. Jason got up off the floor and followed her._

_" Did you know cats can't taste sweetness, Jason?" Fischer asked, taking the feline into his lap and stroking her back. She arched her spine and purred in response to the welcome touch._

_" They can't?" Gasping, Jason's eyes widened, inky brows near meeting his hairline._

_" No. Do you know why?"_

_" No. Why?" This bothered Jason. He couldn't imagine not being able to taste things like honey and sugar. No wonder Gotham's alley cats looked so sad._

_" Well," Fischer put Adelie on the ground and turned to face Jason before he began to explain this random cat fact._

_" You see, most animals have the same taste receptors on their tongues as people do, but not cats. Some scientists say it's because early on in their evolutionary stages, big cats like lions and sabretooths never ate anything sweet so their tongues evolved out of the ability to taste it."_

_" Woah..." Admittedly Jason didn't understand words like 'receptors' or 'evolutionary' but he still knew that was a cool thing for cats to do. Or not to._

_" But your tongue hasn't done that, has it?"_

_Jason smiled and inclined his head, pressing his chin into his chest. " No."_

_" Sure?" Fischer asked with more vigour in his voice. He was smiling too as he slid a bit closer to Jason and Jason let him because he trusted Fischer. Fischer was nice to him after all, that meant he was nice._

_" Yeah." Jason giggled. Fischer could be so silly sometimes. Of course he could taste normally!_

_" I don't believe you, Jason." Fischer put a finger under Jason's chin and tipped his head up, aligning their gazes. He traced the corner of the boy's lips with a brush of his thumb. For a moment, he looked thoughtful before he snapped back into the topic._

_" Lemme have a look. Gotta make sure you got all your taste receptors." He pressed the point of his fingernail against his lower lip, encouraging him to open his mouth._

_To Jason, that seemed like a really strange request and he wasn't entirely comfortable with the hand on his face. He shifted slightly, eyes travelling past Fischer's shoulder as if there lay the right way to reply. What was he meant to say?_

_When he hadn't listened to Willis right away about shutting up... he went away. Fischer would do that too if he said no. Kids had to listen to adults, that's what Catherine had said once._

_" Oh... okay." Hesitantly, Jason parted his jaws and instead of just having a look at his tongue like Jason had thought Fischer would do, he stuck his entire thumb into Jason's mouth, making him gag the further it went. On instinct, he tried to pull away but he hadn't noticed when Fischer's other hand had come to cup the back of his head and keep him still._

_Jason didn't know what this was. Didn't know what to do. So he kind of just stayed stiff and uncomfortable on a number of levels, letting Fischer explore the insides of his cheeks with his thumb and now the index finger he added to probe his tongue with._

_" You're so pretty, Jason..." Fischer murmured to himself, sounding like he hadn't meant to say it aloud. Jason noticed that the cheerfulness in his eyes was gone and replaced with something dull and dark. He was completely expressionless._

_And that comment made Jason even more confused and furrow his brow._

_Boys couldn't be pretty, could they?_

_Jason made some incoherent noise, muffled by the fingers filling his mouth and it seemed to snap Fischer out of the strange trance he'd gone into. He pulled his hand back and wiped the saliva that had remained on his digits off on his thigh._

_" You were right, Jason.  Seems like you're all good." He was smiling again, like nothing happened.  Clearly, they were going to ignore that whole transgression._

_" Yeah, I... I said." Jason wiped the strands of spit from his mouth with his sleeve, unsure. He was so unsure after that. If wasn't what they normally did. Was it just a new game? He hoped not. He hadn't liked it very much._

_Fischer stood up straight and offered him a smile as warm as the summer sun while extending his hand to help Jason up._

_" Welp, guess we better get some food cookin', eh, kiddo?"_

_Jason didn't take the hand and rose by himself._

_" Actually, I... I better go home. Mommy's probably..." Not worried or even aware he was missing._

_Fischer didn't need him to finish that sentence to understand. He walked across the small living room and Adelie laying forgotten on the carpet to open the front door for Jason._

_" Come see me again soon, okay?" Fischer said, almost making him promise with the strange hold he had over the boy._

_Hunched up and hands in his pockets, Jason gave a small nod and hurried out, not saying more than a tiny barely audible 'okay'._

_But he didn't come visit. Not for a few days until Catherine screamed at him for spilling his milk and slapped him across the face hard enough to leave a bruise._

_She really was angry at him after Willis left._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Catherine didn't have much description of any kind in the comics, since almost every panel she appears in she's drugged up and senseless, but I can't imagine she's a much better parent than Willis. Actually, to me she would be worse.
> 
> Yeah, Willis isn't winning any parenting awards but he's out there, trying to make money and keep his family afloat and she's taking drugs, not taking care of their son, and exposing him to things to child should have to deal with.
> 
> Sorry. Didn't meant to go into a rant there.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce's brain was turning over every possibility like he was ploughing the rocks out of a field when his thoughts were stunted abruptly, the very second his eyes landed on the screen flashing the woman's picture and beneath it, what her true identity was.
> 
> That's where he knew her from. Why she looked so familiar.

_Hugging an A4 paper to his chest like he was trying to hide it, Jason toddled into the kitchen where Catherine sat at the table, smoking a cigarette. She stared at the puffs of smoke ascend towards the ceiling and ineffective fire alarm with hooded and dark circled eyes, not giving her son so much as a sideways glance when he came in._

_She took another drag._

_Undeterred or perhaps too used to the tarry smoke, Jason climbed into the chair next to her._

_" I made something for you, Mommy." He beamed, sure his gift would lift her bad mood and make her smile again. Catherine didn't ask him what it was or show any interest but nonetheless, he put his paper flat on the table top and slid it over to her, proudly presenting the stick figures scrawled across the white sheet._

_" Mr Fischer helped me make it." Jason explained, smiling brightly with his hands behind his back over exaggeratedly the way kids did._

_Catherine didn't care to inquire who that was and apathetically gazed at the picture he'd drawn with various different coloured crayons. A family of three with the titles 'mommy', 'daddy', and 'me' above their heads. The bright pink mess of lines with a pointed pile of red spikes on its head was apparently supposed to be her._

_" Do you like it?" Jason slid into her line of sight with a hopeful expression, lips pulled up at the corners and revealing his milk teeth. Catherine resisted the urge to blow smoke into his face to chase him away. Actually, it was less than resistance and came down to her not being bothered to._

_" It would perfect, Jason," Catherine finally let him know with a sarcastic dryness in her tone that was unhidden. She didn't try to sound like she appreciated the gesture at all._

_" If it weren't for this." She finished by pressing the smouldering butt of her cigarette into the word 'mommy' written over her picture. Disbelieving,  Jason stared in horror as a hole burned into the paper and a small column of blue smoke rose, taking the carefully inscribed text with it._

_" That's much better." She lifted the cigarette back to her lips and breathed in, not caring how upset she had made Jason by ruining his lovingly made gift._

_" B... but I made that for you..." Jason's voice was hurt and he was trying so hard to understand why she thought that was out of place. Fischer had helped him write so he had thought it would be fine, that Catherine would like it and not be sad anymore._

_" Then don't write 'mommy' on it. If your fucking father ever comes back, tell him to give it to his little slut. The only paper I want you to give me is the money kind, so if you don't have any of that don't fucking bother with this shit again." She was glaring at him now as if to blame him for an unforgivable crime. There were oceans of loathing in her eyes and she did nought to conceal it._

_" Go play outside. I don't want to see you again today."_

_Tears welling, Jason didn't say anything and snatched up the picture, leaving the kitchen as fast as he could with the intentions of  throwing it into the trash somewhere. He went outside into the damp gloomy hall like Catherine wanted and closed the door behind himself. It clicked shut and the lock fell into place._

_Large teardrops descended onto the crumpled paper in his hands as he stared down at it, crushing it further in his hands. Jason had been certain she would love it enough to love him, if only for a small amount of time._

_He must have done something wrong again._

_Like he always did. He was what drove his father away, after all, because he was always messing up._

_For the first time in what would be many to come, Jason found himself wishing like Catherine, that he had never been born._

* * *

 

For a man as sleazy as Willis Todd, Bruce would have to admit he was very skilled in covering his tracks. Like, Dark Knight level good. There was close to nothing, no carbon or cyber footprints, that could be used to trace where he had been for so many years. It was clear to see that Jason inherited his natural ability to fly under the radar from his father.

Batman had gone to the prison where Willis was supposedly killed, Blackgate penitentiary, to look over their sentencing records and upon first glance, everything seemed legitimate. The prison riot had happened but the death certificate was difficult to find. However, once he uncovered it from under years of piled up files in the archives as if deliberately hidden, he made the discovery that it had been signed by a doctor working at Blackgate.

So why was the death listed as presumed on every other document but this one?

With the exception of Jason and Catherine, Willis had no family who would have looked into it. Which neither of them did for reasons nothing short of the obvious.

The only thing wrong with the death certificate was that the doctor who had sealed the deal by scrawling their name across the dotted line didn't exist.

There was no Chantelle Rivera working at Blackgate fifteen years ago. Heck, there wasn't even a woman of that name living in Gotham then. And thus things became a little more suspicious. Fortunately, by some blessing sent by the universe to make Bruce's investigation a notch easier, a picture of the woman came attached with the fake ID he found after digging deeper. She would have had to give identification if she wanted to get into the prison, but she was just a photo on a card with a false name. 

This was becoming a poorly done cover-up no one cared enough about to investigate in the past.

'Chantelle' looked familiar, Bruce would admit, the soft blonde curls and dark blue eyes ringing some bell that's chime he couldn't quite name. Not that that was entirely a shock, seeing as how Bruce Wayne had met no shortage of women in his lifetime.

Photo being run through the most advanced facial recognition software in the world, he continued doing everything in his considerable power to find out exactly where Willis had spent his son's formative years and why he was here again, because there had better be a bloody good reason he had left Jason to fend for himself aged five.

Bruce couldn't help it, he was angry every time that idea crossed his mind. Jason alone with the sort of people who crawled around Gotham's streets after hours, each one just itching to get their disgusting fingers around anything that moved. And majority of the time that 'anything' would be a powerless child.

So fixated on the task was he, that he didn't hear when Alfred came down with his usual devoid-of-emotion expression.

" Master Bruce,"

" Mmh?" Bruce didn't turn his head to look at Alfred or drag his attention from the numerous screens, each running a different program. 

Alfred, for all his hundreds of acres of patience, was used to being given one per cent of attentiveness from him, of course, hence why it didn't bother him.

" Your company is here." 

He frowned. 

" My comp - who?" Bruce turned in his chair though his hands remained hovering above the keyboard. He didn't recall inviting anyone over and he really didn't have the time to host guests right now. 

" Miss Mears." 

Inwardly and maybe some of it made it into out into the audible world, Bruce groaned. Oh yes. Now he remembered extending an invitation to her to come to dinner this evening, but he didn't have so much as an hour to spare for her. 

" Could you tell her this is a really inconvenient ti-"

" Will all due respect, Master Bruce," Alfred cut him off with his sharp British timbre, " go tell her yourself. It is the gentlemanly thing to do." 

Bruce sometimes asked himself how the Dark Knight, scourge of Gotham's underworld and paralysing fear of the wicked, could be bossed around by a frail old man. He thought about that as he pulled himself from the computers and headed for the staircase, Alfred's unnameable gaze trailing after.

On the way, he changed out of Batman's uniform into something more Bruce Wayneish. A suit.

 

Caitlin Mears was easily one of the most beautiful of Bruce's companions to date.  Her elegantly curled locks were a rich shade of mahogany. It flowed in waves to adorn her glowing, porcelain-like skin. Framed by feathery long lashes, her eyes were a mystifying midnight blue and seemed to hold the secrets behind every conundrum the universe presented. A straight nose, full lips, subtle curves capable of holding a man's gaze for as long as she allowed - she was the picture of perfection. It was no small wonder why her face was seen in the trailers to what seemed like every movie in production. She came from nothing and had struggled her way to the top.

Hers and Bruce's relationship wasn't really anything but a publicity stunt, but he was okay with that. He needed to keep up the billionaire playboy mantra in the eyes of the public any way he could.

But maybe there was something else there too.

Caitlin was waiting in the living room, hands clasped in front of her as she gazed through the large arched window down at the pristine gardens surrounding the mansion. She was completely content to watch and wait for as long as necessary.

She was an abnormally patient, understanding woman.

" Sorry to keep you waiting, Cait." Bruce entered the room with his best smile, completely fake, of course, but no one who wasn't Alfred or his boys could tell. Caitlin turned away from the window and painted a ray of pure sunshine across her face in the form of a smile that perfectly captured her inner radiance. Bruce had never known anyone but Dick to make an expression so rapturous. 

" It's no bother. Alfred said you might be busy?" This was an inquiry more than an observation and by her sweet, patient tone, Bruce knew she wouldn't be upset that he had to cancel. It was just the sort of person she was.

" Yes. Unfortunately, there's a company project that needs my attention and the deadline is coming up this weekend." There was a lot of implication behind his words and Caitlin didn't miss out on it. 

With elegant, balanced strides, she made her way across the space between them until she was less than an inch from him, the fingers of one hand tracing the pressed creases of his suit jacket. Her movements were slow, deliberate and above all, seductive.

" Bruce Wayne, are you asking me if we can take a rain check?"

" Uh," he presented her with casual puppy-eyes, too sweet to be turned down. Inside his head, Batman scoffed disapproval.

".... _Yes_?"

" Hmm. Will you make it up to me?" Fingers scissor walking up his broad chest, she nibbled on the corner of her burned rose painted lips, purposefully meeting his gaze with a glimmer in her eyes that no straight man was immune to. On a normal day, Bruce wouldn't have bothered putting rational thought between him and the warmth of her body against his...

But there was the crucial matter concerning Jason and his father that needed to be treated as priority number one.

" As soon as I'm finished," Bruce said, gently enveloping her hand in his, thumb stroking her palm. The way their eyes met made the air feel thick and hot and not PG at all. Thank fuck Damian was away for the day at his boarding school. 

" We'll take a trip to my lakehouse. Sound good?"

" Only if it's a promise." Caitlin brought her lips close enough to his ear to whisper that. Couldn't this woman do anything without the enchanting demeanour?  

" It's a promise." He sealed his word of honour with a kiss he could feel her smiling through.

 

Bruce walked Caitlin to her car and saw her off, appearing like he had all the time in the world while his innards squirmed with the knowledge that he was wasting time in putting a stop to this chaos revolving around Jason like planets orbiting the sun. The instant she was out of sight, he made a beeline back to the cave.

By now, IAFIS should be done running the fake doctor's face through FBI and CIA databases, as well as some known only to the Bat himself.  Finding out the familiar looking Chantelle Rivera's true identity would be the first step in creating a timeline and series of events to link to Willis and why he was here again.

Step two was finding a cushioned way to explain to Jason why Bruce had ignored his wishes and gone behind his back.

As much as 'father knows best' would have applied it was the worst thing Bruce could say. As if he would ever actually bring himself to say that.

On his way down, he considered which members of the rogues gallery were possible suspects in wanting Red Hood captured and delivered to their feet. They had to have wealth somewhere near as much as the Wayne Family as well as every ear in Gotham.

Penguin? Maybe but not really his MO. He had no beef with the Hood. Black Mask was far more likely but he would never be inconspicuous about it.  The man was a bold as he was visually unappealing. 

Bruce's brain was turning over every possibility like he was ploughing the rocks out of a field when his thoughts were stunted abruptly, the very second his eyes landed on the screen flashing the woman's picture and beneath it, what her true identity was.

That's where he knew her from. Why she looked so familiar.

".... Sheila Haywood?"

* * *

 

" Richard 'Dick' Grayson, runs away from home aged eighteen... Jason, taken in aged thirteen... dies two years later... Timothy Drake enters the scene aged fourteen, emancipated and moves to New York aged seventeen... Damian Wayne, supposed biological son Wayne only found out about ten years after his birth... currently resides with his father." 

Nibbling on his pen, Willis stared at the pictures of the boys in the dark room lit only by the laptop's screen and went over everything he already knew. How the fuck had no one called the cops on this guy yet? All these underaged kids he was taking in followed the obvious pattern of black hair and blue or green eyes. That could admittedly be chalked up to an incredible coincidence on every case, there was more.

Back when Jason was little... and alive... Willis couldn't have imagined he would ever be capable of working a computer like second nature, but he'd learned things while he was away so getting his virtual hands on confidential medical documents from Gotham General wasn't a challenge. 

And lo and behold what he found.

On the case of the first ward alone, Dick Grayson, there were multiple accounts of broken bones and severe lacerations that had been casually swept under the rug. In one instance the poor kid had been brought in with a gunshot wound to his shoulder and no one raised a brow. Were the doctors on call back then blind and fucking retarded to boot?

Tim Drake and Damian Wayne had the same sorts of things in their files which added fuel to his evidence fire, but Willis knew better than to open Jason's. If he saw official documents of what the sicko did to his son he wouldn't be able to stop himself from appearing at Bruce Wayne's next public meeting with a gun and putting a chunk of led between his eyes.

He wasn't going to do that just yet because Wayne would still be getting away as a man who did nothing wrong. No one would believe the killer about what a sick paedophile the well known and well loved public figure was when behind closed doors.

Willis needed more proof. Proof that couldn't just be dismissed like everything so far.

While he worked, ghosts of memories danced around the room, hiding in the dark of night as well as in the furthest reaches of his mind. He tried not to hear them even when he knew coming back here would unleash a myriad of distracting echoes from times past. The entire apartment block where he, Jason, and Catherine used to live was now abandoned and long since fallen into severe disrepair. If he hadn't thought it was a dump before then it certainly was one now.

Mould had claimed every inch of the already damp walls and the windows were cracked, doors falling off their hinges, and spaces in the crumbling brickwork were allowing in cold drafts of air. Broken furniture lay strewn across the ground in every conceivable direction, which left room to wonder who had wrecked the place as it didn't look like anyone came to live here after they left. 

Now and then his eyes would drift from the computer screen to tormentedly gaze upon the open door to the dark bathroom where Catherine had died, then to the halved kitchen table Jason used to hide beneath whenever his parents argued.

Which was often.

Willis had briefly scoured the apartment before setting up the computer equipment on the living room floor - where he was currently sitting hunched over -  and he'd found a small blue toy car in Jason's old room. It was tin and missing a wheel, nothing especially well made but it had been _Jason's_ , his son's, and he couldn't stop handling it near obsessively while going over numerous documents and files.

He rolled it from palm to palm, taking in the smooth surfaces with the sudden sharp curves. He discovered a long time ago that fiddling with something - _anything_ , could sometimes take away the lifelong yearning for drugs and alcohol that plagued him. The car helped more than other objects because it was Jason's toy and the constant reminder of his son kept him fixed on what he was doing and why he needed to do it.

Because Jason's killer wasn't getting away with the horrible crimes he had committed not only towards him but all these other kids too. They'd been beaten on a level of cruelty Willis had never seen in domestic abuse cases, no matter how bad they had been. Surely there was a single among them who wouldn't stay quiet about this abuse forever?

Perhaps. With the exception of Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson lived closest but Willis wasn't going to go after his confession tonight. _Tonight_ , he needed to get to into the database of the morgue that had done the autopsy for Jason's body. It was right here in Gotham City.

Those things he had learned over the years made it easy to access the records, which admittedly hadn't been guarded very well. Still passing the car from hand to hand, the mouse hovered above a file before he dubiously clicked on the one with his son's name on it he eventually found it. Willis didn't want to see what was on it but he needed to. Unlike the medical records, he couldn't ignore this. He owed it to Jason to at least learn how he had died.

Might be among the few things he owed Jason that he could deliver upon.

When the file opened, it displayed a sickening nightmare across the screen of his computer. Pictures of a mangled child he couldn't recognise as his own... beaten, limbs broken, bones smashed, cut open, flash burns covering more than less of him...  what the fuck had Wayne done? The MEs had tried to pretty him up, stitched shut lacerations and straightened the clean breaks in his skeleton, but they couldn't hide it. 

Stomach turning, bile was building up quickly in Willis's mouth, but it couldn't build up faster than the sheer horror that left him speechless, jaw agape and trembling. 

There was a close up of Jason's face, eyes shut and purpling, face pale as milk, and most noticeably, a huge dent in his skull. Angry red and clotted with blood, it dipped into his head and was rimmed by shards of his broken cranium and tufts of black hair.

Willis had raised his hand to cover his mouth with, his gaze wide and blood running ice cold. But he couldn't look away.

Almost every bone in Jason's body hadn't been broken, but shattered to fragments. A photo of his abdomen showed black bruises and burn marks stretching across his skin, and a long horizontal cut from hip to hip, left behind by a knife slicing his stomach open. To... _gut_ him.

Willis was actually sick with that one but he managed to swallow the vomit back down. He'd known Bruce Wayne was a sick fuck but this... god, how could this have happened to his child? _He_ let this happen when he left. It was the most sickening, evil thing he had ever seen. He felt faint and on the verge of a panic attack the further he went on.

Hideous maroon bruises were circulating Jason's wrists, which meant Wayne had tied him up to do this. 

His heart was hammering hard against his ribs right now, like a small caged bird desperate to escape.

Ribcage smashed from severe blunt force trauma, the bones sticking out of Jason's torn up side at uneven, horrifying angles. Done with a hammer, crowbar, or other cast iron object. And none of it was post-mortem. Jason had been alive and feeling for all of this.

Willis's hands tightened around the toy car until the sharp edges cut into his palms, pricking through the skin and unleashing trails of blood. He didn't feel it.

How the fuck was this passed by as an accident? In what world was a man allowed to get away with this?!

He couldn't help it, Willis was picturing the torturous throes of agony stretching through the hours it would have taken to cause Jason all this damage. Had he screamed? Cried? _Begged_? Would he have pleaded with a higher power to end his life while that monster loomed over him? And.... had he prayed for his parents to come save him?

The bones snapping, muscles ripping, the cries of pain, Willis could hear it all in his vivid imaginings. He could smell the blood, thick in the air, and taste Jason's fear. His wide terrified blue/green eyes filled with tears tore through his mind with the power of a freight train, destroying every other thought in his path. 

He slammed the laptop shut and recoiled from it.

Willis couldn't investigate further that night because he spent the rest of it crying into his hands, brokenly apologising again and again to his dead son. 

" I'm so sorry, Jason... I'm sorry..." 

* * *

 

Jason glared at the hand that appeared from nowhere to pluck the cigarette from between his lips, wishing for once in his life that he had heat vision to eviscerate the intruder's limb with.  He wasn't Superman who actually had that power, but he sure as hell had a loaded Beretta strapped to his thigh that he could blow a hole into someone with.

But Bruce wouldn't like that very much.

" Give it back, Goldie. If I don't get my nicotine fix I'm going to kill someone." And that was a little short from a promise. Jason's voice and expression was dark and threatening as Nightwing plopped down next to him on the roof, swinging those annoyingly long legs over the edge. He wasn't deterred by Jason's tone that implied he was seconds from ripping someone's larynx out with his bare hands.

" No, you're not." He seemed sure of that and it ticked Jason off.  Like he thought Jason had gotten so desperate for their mentor's approval that he'd gone soft.

" And these'll give you lung cancer, Little Wing." With an overly elegant flick of his wrist, Nightwing had sent the cigarette out of his hand and falling into the dark alley below them, the wind quickly swallowing the heat from the smouldering tip. 

" I've had two mothers, thanks, Grayson. I don't need a third." Jason gathered his legs beneath himself and stood, intending to go find another smoking spot but he didn't get half a step away before Nightwing's arm had shot out and his fingers were wrapped around Jason's wrist in a surprisingly steely hold.

" I'm faster than you, Jason. I can catch you."

Jason stared at him, trying to comprehend if he meant what he'd just said.

" You're seriously saying you'll run after me if I go?"

Finally, Nightwing looked up at him, still sitting but somehow his masked eyes found a way to creep through Jason's defences and make him feel like he was face-to-face with sheer authority. How the hell he still make him feel like a naive fourteen-year-old Robin whenever not Dick Grayson, but his predecessor and former idol stared at him?

" Are you going to make me?" 

" Can't run if I bust your legs." Much as Jason wanted to go light another cig somewhere far from here, he hadn't yet pulled himself free from the hold he could break so easily. Nightwing gave him a small, insistent tug despite his threat to cripple him and Jason begrudgingly resumed his spot, but not without a frustrated sigh.

But he didn't feel like fighting or arguing tonight. He'd beat the shit out of everyone he could get his hands on and he still felt empty. Or maybe a better word was.... sad? Hurt?

" Please don't break my legs, Jay." He flashed that bright smile of his with the request. "Unlike some of us, I gotta show up to my job tomorrow morning." 

" Yea, it's great. I'm livin' the life." Jason sarcastically replied, deliberately not seeing the crumb of humour in that. " Comes with the small price of being beaten to death and crawling out of your own grave bloody and screaming."

Nightwing's smile and good mood became a thing of the past with that and wordlessly, they turned back to watch Gotham. Covered by the thick dark blanket of night and lit up by thousands of streetlights, anyone who didn't know her true colours would have thought the city was peacefully resting. But Gotham was as deadly as she was beautiful.

" Correct me if I'm wrong," Jason finally said, words cutting through the silence like a stab that wasn't unwelcome because it's what his idiotic big brother had been waiting for him to do.

 " But this isn't your city. Why are you here, Goldie?" 

Jason hadn't noticed when Nightwing had taken his mask off Dick Grayson's face, leaving clear trails of spirit gum to remind them where it had been. Without the disguise, his eyes were showcased as the highlights of his already too angelic looks. Eyes coloured solid crystalline blue, just like everything about him, his whole aesthetic, they were pure and without imperfection.

" I heard someone put a hit on you, Jay. Came to see how you were handlin'." 

" That's nice of you, but how about you tell me why you're actually here?" 

Dick stiffened at being caught so fast but did his little brother the justice of not continuing the bluff. There was enough respect between them to not lie on a continuous loop, at least on Dick's part. Jason could lie to a point where it seemed like a pathological must.

" Oracle told me you sent five men to the hospital and beat the rest senseless." 

Jason scoffed. So they were spying on him now? Or seeing who would win the bet as to when he inevitably went off the rails berserk again? Their understandably small grain of faith in him was heartwarming.

 " So? I beat the shit outta people constantly and you don't raise a brow." Jason was kicking his legs now and drumming his ring finger against the flat of the roof, telltale signs of him suffering the backlash of nicotine deprivation. Or that's what it would have looked like to the untrained eye, but Jason wasn't a chain smoker and only resorted to filling his lungs with the tarry smog whenever something was really stressing him out.

Dick knew his brother enough to see that.

" From the brutality and the kind of injuries you caused, it looked like you were distressed. Babs wanted me to check if you were okay." Dick was prepared to answer the question he expected Jason to raise, why were they monitoring him? Because for some reason he wouldn't disclose, Bruce had requested them to and heaven forbid they don't comply to the big man's wishes.

But Jason didn't ask or didn't care.

Or wasn't surprised and already had his version of the truth.

" I don't get fucking distressed, Grayson. I was pissed off." Jason was annoyed like he was most of the time when Dick was around, that or he would resort to sarcasm. But that didn't stop Dick from detecting the defensiveness crawling from between the cracks in his walls. Jason wouldn't face him entirely and Dick could see why; his eyes were bloodshot and his cheeks subject to drying tear streaks. Jason had been crying. And Jason _never_ cried.

Something was definitely wrong with his Little Wing.

But Dick didn't need to force him into a corner. He'd play along with Jason's obviously false statement.

" Okay, fine. You were pissed off. Care to share why?"

" I'd rather slam my face into a makeup palette and dislocate my jaw smiling like Beetlejuice." Jason bluntly replied, as if he would ever actually cosplay as the implied clown prince of crime. Dick watched him intently, mulling over in his head how clearly this approach wasn't going to work. 

A different tactic was required and he had a pretty solid idea.

Dick gave Jason a fright the way he jumped up so suddenly without effort, his limber body trained to withstand his random bounds since birth. 

" C'mon." Dick offered his hand with a reanimated smile that was trying and failing to assure Jason of something. 

" Where?" Jason asked in disinterest because he sure as hell wasn't going anywhere with Golden Grayson unless he knew where it was. And maybe not even then, he wasn't feeling very social tonight.

Not that he was ever particularly social.

" I got a safe house not far from here. Kinda like an R&R spot whenever I'm in Gotham and I'm staying for a few days. You should come for a bit, Jay."

" Tempting but no."

" We can order pizza...."

" Fuck off."

Dick sighed as if he were about to commit some act he really didn't want to. He rested his hands on the curves of his hips, his sudden change in demeanour enough to make Jason look at him in question.

Now, what the hell was Dick doing?

" I didn't want it to come to this, Jase." There was premature apology on his features as he plastered his domino mask back over his face, smoothening the sides down carefully to make it stick.

" The fuck are you talking - _hey_!" Before Jason could stop him or even get his hands close enough to do so, Dick had snatched his helmet from where it sat beside him and was bolting across the roof with it tucked under his arm. 

It took a heartbeat for Jason to actually wrap his head around what Nightwing - freaking _Nightwing_ just did.

" Are you kidding me?!" Jason leapt up onto his feet and thundered after him, but like Dick had made clear earlier, he was the faster of the two. He could easily make a clean getaway if he didn't want to be followed. But he _did_ want to be followed. It was the whole angle here and lucky for him, Jason didn't have a spare hood right now.

" Are you _fucking_ kidding me?!" 

" Race ya back to my place!" Dick yelled merrily over his shoulder, leaping off the roof and out of his younger brother's sight with his helmet held captive.

Gritting his teeth, Jason huffed in annoyance and kicked some more speed into himself, mentally cursing the first boy wonder and his future descendants. 

It took every ounce of self-control he had not to press the detonator in the compartments of his belt and blow the helmet and  his former role model with it straight to hell.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the mystery deepens….


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crying.
> 
> Jason was crying. So hard his insides hurt.
> 
> He'd agreed. Said yes to it. He'd done what Fischer called 'consent'. It's not like he was forced to. So why couldn't he stop bawling?

_" She didn't like it." Jason sighed in defeat, gaze downcast on the warm lavender scented water he was helping Fischer wash Adelie in. In circular motions, he rubbed shampoo into her wet fur. Unlike most creatures of the feline species, she throughoutly enjoyed soaking in the tub. Her eyes closed in enjoyment and head tipped back were a testament to that._

_" The picture?" Fischer inquired, cupping a handful of water and pouring it over Adelie's head, taking care not to get any in her ears. He was kneeling on the bathroom floor, but Jason was small enough to stand. It was the only way he could reach close enough to lather the cat in shampoo. He was using way too much of the stuff - handfuls of it - but Fischer didn't tell him that._

_" Yeah." His normally exuberant voice wasn't teary or anything, just sad. Disappointed. He was too tired of trying with Catherine to cry every single time it ended in failure. And he still didn't understand why she was furious at him for writing mommy on it._

_" Why not? It was lovely." He glanced over at Jason with the inquiry, arching a brow._

_" She told me not to give her paper unless it was money. And I don't have any money." Jason explained, rinsing bubbles out of Adelie's soaking coat. He wasn't doing a very precise job, as could be expected of anyone who had lived as few years as him._

_" We haven't had money since Daddy went away."_

_Fischer hummed in understanding. He had noticed how Jason appeared to be even slimmer lately than he had ever been, the product of his malnourishment worsening. Were it not for him the kid would have starved to death in the first month of his father's absence because Catherine sure as hell wasn't looking after him. Whatever money they had left she spent on drugs and cigarettes, not on putting food in her child's stomach._

_And Jason honestly seemed to believe he could buy his mother's love._

_Fischer thought to himself, what sort of a neighbour would he be if he didn't help Jason when he needed it?_

_" Guess you're too young to have a job, huh?"_

_Jason nodded once, never once looking up from the cat. " If I could get her money, I would."_

_Idea forming in his head, Fischer watched Jason, no longer concentrating on Adelie at all as he was taking this moment to truly appreciate how pretty the five-year-old was. The tan skin, the black hair, brows, lashes, his cute freckles and the sweet little dimple on his cheek when he smiled, his steadily dulling turquoise eyes..... and he was so preciously small._

_So deliciously small._

_" I've got something you could do for money, Jason." Fischer pulled his hands dripping from the water and shook the droplets off. Jason looked up, his interests peaked._

_" What is it?" That question was so innocent the way it rolled off his tongue. So.... untainted, not yet ruined by the hardships of life. It had to be Fischer's favourite thing about children. They were a blank canvas, allowing dealer's choice, complete and utter freedom with how to paint them._

_" You could help me with Adelie." He offered. The space between them was gradually lessening with each word. " Feed her, help me wash her, play with her. And sometimes you could do other things."_

_" Like what?" Jason too took his hands out of the water and turned in a half circle to face Fischer, who was less than a foot from him. Still, on his knees, Fischer and he were almost on the same level of height. Jason was unnerved to a degree by the sudden closeness in proximity, but the wall was to his back and didn't allow for him to add any steps towards a distance he was comfortable with._

_But he trusted Fischer._

_" Things you need to keep quiet about, Jason." Fischer's claws for fingers found his shoulders and settled on them lightly. There was no more sound except for Jason's stumbling heartbeat and slow breaths. He didn't know why but he was nervous. Fischer's expression was serious, granting no more room for him to talk without ever telling Jason that. The dull darkness that had scared him before had crept unnoticed back into Fischer's eyes._

_" Things that need to be our secret, okay? If your mommy finds out, you can't keep getting her any money and then she'll be angry again. You don't want that, do you?"_

_Something was filling Jason, something like fear. It weighed heavily on his tongue, anchoring it down and enabling his ability to speak. So he gave a jerking nod of his head as a response. Heaven knew he wanted Catherine to be happy, no matter the cost._

_" Because if you tell anyone, I'll go away just like your daddy did. Do you want to be alone?"_

_Again, another quick shake as a reply. The idea of being abandoned a second time terrified Jason more than the sinister undertone that snuck unrequested into everything Fischer was now saying._

_" Don't tell anyone about this and everything will be okay."_

_" Oh - okay." Jason couldn't keep the tremor from his voice hidden. Confused, the true nature of the situation going over his head, he didn't know why Fischer pulled him closer towards himself but a core instinct in him wanted him to resist._

_But he didn't want to be alone again. To be abandoned again._

_" Wh - what do you w - want me to do?" Jason barely got the question out before his breath caught in his throat. Fischer craned himself and pressed his face into the crook of Jason's neck, inhaling a deep lungful of his soft scent. Jason was beginning to shake in his grasp, his eyes wide and confused, but the goosebumps prickling across his unscarred, perfect, beautiful skin was akin to water before a man wandering in the desert._

_Irresistible._

_" You want to help your mom, don't you?" Fischer parted his thin chapped lips and licked a long wet stripe from Jason's neck to the shoulder he was slowly exposing to the dim bathroom light. He fumbled a hold on the sleeve of his t-shirt and started pulling it down and over his arm._

_" Just stay very, very quiet."_

*

" Oh, there you are, Little Wing." Dick smiled at Jason when he eventually caught up with him, but by then Dick had had the time to arrive at his safe house, peel out of his Nightwing uniform, try on Red Hood's hood, and from the deepest, darkest corners of his place, scrounge up a menu for a hole-in-the-wall pizzeria that delivered.

He was browsing through the options when Jason came in through the window, lightly panting and sweat glistening on his brow. The advantage of purposefully making him run laps around Gotham for an hour longer than necessary, was tiring him out. The product of that? He was too knackered to be difficult about his helmet being stolen or that he'd practically been made to come visit his dear older brother.

Oh, yes, Dick had dealt with younger siblings long enough to know he needed to get them tired out before he could hold an intelligent conversation with them.

" I wondered what took you."

Jason glared at him but there wasn't much conviction to it. Not much of anything but the effort of pulling the face and the somnolence Dick had deliberately caused.

" Fuck you." He murmured, collapsing onto the couch next to his brother without bothering to see where his beloved and kidnapped helmet resided. It was on the kitchen counter, out of his sight with the magic marker smile Dick had drawn on the inside as a nice surprise for Jason the next time he put it on.

And yes, of course it was a luminescent smile.

Jason was a panting crumbled mess on the couch, limbs strewn this way and that, while Dick sat a tonne more gracefully, his back straight and posture altogether perfect, legs folded as was a comfortable position for him. Dick, however, left his spot and unwound his legs to scootch over to Jason and stuff the menu into his face.

" What're you hungry for?"

" Get that fucking thing outta my face, _Dick_." Jason scrunched up his features in annoyance and waved it aside, catching Dick's hand but taking care not to hurt him when he shoved it away.

" I get to choose? Sweet." Dick grinned. He stared at the options with an intent frown furrowing his brow.

" Hmm. Tuna and pineapple? Nah. Too basic. Pepperoni with goat cheese and sweet smoked peppers? Nope. Too extravagant."

After taking his sweet time to browse, Dick sighed deeply, dramatically, and tossed the menu onto the coffee table. He stood.

" Hawaiian it is. You okay with pineapples, Jay?" He glanced over at his little brother to check with him and his reply was an incoherent grunt somewhere between 'yes' and 'go fuck yourself'. Dick smiled fondly at him for no particular reason. Maybe just because he was who he was; Dick Grayson, sunshine child of a family of moody brooders.

Jason noted Dick went to make the call to the pizzeria in the kitchen, without the menu that had the place's number. Knowing him and the crap he stuffed down his throat, he knew the phone number by heart or had it saved on his speed dial. His perfectly toned body and waistline to die for made no sense in regards to his god-awful diet.

While Dick did that, Jason's breathing had settled to normal and he adjusted himself into a more comfortable position, considering removing a few layers in the form of his leather jacket, but then decided against it as he didn't see himself staying for long. Just until he could reap the full advantages of getting Dick to pay for food.

And maybe...

Maybe he didn't want to be alone right now? He secretly might have wanted company to keep his mind off everything that had come crashing down on him these past two days. And Dick had a very distracting personality that he found to be quite blissful when he was trying not to think.

About Willis.

Who made him think about Catherine.

And..... _Fischer_.

Even after all these years, the name still made Jason's skin crawl. He shifted uncomfortably and rested his chin on his hand, staring at the wall as if it was more than white paint over plain brickwork and had some hidden secrets to it.

Some kids forgot their traumas as a defence mechanism. He wasn't so lucky.

_" Just stay very, very quiet."_

Jason flinched when the horribly unforgettable voice rasped next to his ear. Right when he'd felt a bit better after the simple act of running his problems away, they came screaming back to his heels. He ran his tongue along his lower lip and fidgeted with his fingers, palms becoming sweaty.

' _Slay your demons_ ' Bruce once said to him, but how could he slay them when every time they thundered back to face him, in his mind he was a helpless little child, terrified of being abandoned to the point where he was willing to let anyone do anything to him?

It made him hate Willis more. One, for not protecting him when he couldn't do it himself, and two, for coming back now that it was years too late.

Though Jason denied it, he did want to know why. Why did his dad leave? Except for the obvious reason that he didn't want a family. That he didn't want his son.

But there had to be a more prominent reason. That couldn't be it. If Jason could stomach facing Willis, or wanted him to know he wasn't dead, he could just ask. It wasn't all hatred that kept him at bay, though. Not at all. Part of it was the age-old fear of being unwanted again. Rejected. 

Dammit. He'd been getting to such a good place in his life, with Bruce, with his brothers, and now his fucking dad had to show up and send everything spiralling back down to hell. He hadn't even killed anyone for two months and he almost beat those guys to death last night!

He supposed he now knew what the whole family thought of when he crossed their minds,

_' I wish he'd stayed dead.'_

Exhaling, Jason really hoped Dick would get his ass back here soon with something attention consuming to say since this was getting too much to dwell on.

Without realising he'd been tearing up, Jason sniffed and quickly wiped his dampening eyes with his palms when as if hearing his little brother's mental pleads, Dick reappeared from the kitchen with the big grin his face could hardly be associated without.

" Food's on the way!" He grabbed the remote off the coffee table and bounced back onto the couch, literally bounced. Once he'd settled back down comfortably he switched the wall mounted TV on and started scrolling through the channels in the search for a good movie to have playing in the background while he got to the bottom of what was wrong with his little brother. Outwardly he appeared to be in a good mood but he was getting increasingly  worried about Jason.

He wasn't himself at all.

" Whaddya wanna watch, JayJay?"

" Mh?" Jason lifted his head from his hand and blinked heavily, the question registering sluggishly like he was coming out of a trance.

" Oh... uh, I don't care. Something scary?"

" If it's horror you want, then horror you shall receive." Dick did a quick search for movies of that genre and was soon scrolling through a myriad of titles, reading them aloud as he did.

" Annabelle: Creation - Steph says it's _really_ good - Hush, The Open House - apparently sucks worse than a vacuum - Rings, The Blair Witch Project, Insidious, The Exorci-"

" Yeah." Jason cut him off. " That one." There was no desire to his choice, only the wish to have a loud, terrifying flic with screams and gore to drag his attention away from Willis. But the more he tried not to think about him, the more he ended up doing so.

" Y'sure?" Dick raised a sceptical brow while in the process of selecting The Exorcist. " You don't like classics."

" Just turn the fucking thing on."

" Mmh. If it's what you want." He said sceptically.

" I know what I want, Dick." Jason snapped out of the blue and his brother had a serious feeling what he was saying had nothing to do with the movie. And Dick very much doubted Jason ever really knew what he wanted. He'd been conflicted for all the seven years they'd known each other.

" I know, Jay. Just checkin'." Dick switched it on and set the remote back down after adjusting the volume. He leaned back against the couch and glanced over at Jason, who'd retreated back into his thoughts. He wasn't paying any attention at all to the movie as Dick had suspected he wouldn't.

Some minutes passed before,

" What's bugging you, Little Wing? Bruce said-"

" The fuck he tell you?" Jason demanded, cutting him off mid-sentence. There was defensiveness in his eyes in place of anger, so sharp and sudden that it caught Dick off guard, and that was saying a lot since he already knew Jason was on edge.

He had to tread calmly, though. Keep the situation from escalating.

" He didn't tell me anything. Just about the new hit and that we should check in on you every now and again cause you aren't feeling well. Are you sick or something?"

" Yeah. Fucking sick of you constantly cramming your damn concern down my throat and I don't need that cause believe me, I've had enough dicks down there to last me a lifetime."

Dick couldn't tell if he was serious or not. With Jason, you never could.

" It's - its like you're trying to find a problem with me." Jason went on.

" No, Jay. I'm not. I'm just worried about you, that's all."

" Why?" Jason furrowed his darker than night brows, frustrated and confused over whatever else was going on with him. Dick knew his behaviour had nothing to do with him.

" You're my baby brother. I worry about you all the time. Same with Tim and Dami."

Jason blinked. " Well...." He was at a loss for words. "...you shouldn't. I'm fine."

Sighing, Dick removed his arm slung over the back of the couch and looped it around Jason's shoulders, which he was too worn out to protest to. Dick pulled him in closer and rested his head against his brother's.

" I know, Jay. I know."

For a non disclosed reason, Jason didn't reject the tiny bit of physical contact like he usually did. 

The movie rolled on and while they both stared at the screen blankly, neither of them really spoke or paid particular attention to it. Dick had seen the Exorcist a thousand times and Jason thought it was boring and the effects were crap. And next to modern CGI, that wasn't exactly untrue.

The doorbell rang soon, meeting the pizzeria's thirty-minute delivery promise just minutes shy of the guaranteed time. Dick got up and went to answer it, not missing out on Jason's small reluctance to allow him to remove the arm around his shoulders. Jason wasn't one for being touched but tonight he felt like he needed the comforting warmth Dick exuded in waves.

It was better than the cold. He hated being cold. The cold was like being alone.

He didn't want to talk or do anything, just wanted another living person whose breath to listen to.

It reminded him of life, something he needed reminders of from time to time. 

Jason heard Dick thank the pizza guy and tip him far too generously, probably wish him a good evening too.

He was way too nice.

When he came back with the flat box in his hands, the living room filled with the mouthwatering aroma of ham, cheese, and Jason's favourite smell in the entire world, oregano.

Dick was smiling again when he sat down and placed the box down on the coffee table, popping the top open and intensifying the tantalising smell that convinced Jason's stomach he was hungry before checking with his brain.

" There ya go, Lil' Wing." Dick presented him with a pre-cut slice that was just glistening with grease and oils spilling out of the molten cheese. In a word, it was perfect.

" Thanks, jerkface." Jason mumbled as he accepted it and broadened his brother's grin. He took a bite of the too hot pizza and burned the top of his mouth, but chewed and swallowed nonetheless. He'd had far worse things in his mouth than sizzling food.

Dick munched noisily like he always did, savouring every bit of flavour he could draw from the piece junk food Alfred would never approve of. There was something about the way that he ate that made Jason think he enjoyed every segment purposefully like he could taste them all individually.

But he didn't know. Dick was damn weird.

But he wasn't dumb. He always gave sound advice when Jason gathered his courage and swallowed his pride enough to ask.

" Hey, Dick?" Jason said when he had eaten only half his slice, holding the remnants hovering by his lips.

" Yes, Jay?"

" Can I ask you something?"

Dick took another bite of his pizza, gob half full when he answered,

" Always."

Despite the go-ahead, Jason hesitated for a beat.

" Do you - _if_ your mom _hypothetically_ came back from the dead, what would you do?"

Dick's food paused on its way to his lips and he lowered his hand, turning to face him and giving his brother his whole, undivided attention.

" What's this about, Jason?"

" Nothin', it's hypothetical." Jason insisted. " Just answer."

" Well, uh," Dick thought for an uncertain moment, unsure what the hidden angle to the question was.

"If mama came back I'd probably hug her tight and never let go. I'd cry into her shoulder and tell her I love her and I've missed her and.." Dick's voice and mind trailed off, momentarily captured by whatever notion the idea came with. A smile flickered on his lips with the sweetness of the impossible miracle that would never happen. But it would be a beautiful day if it did.

Jason lowered his eyes onto his lap. Something in his throat constricted and made him swallow hard and heavy. Yeah, Dick would do all those things. He had that luxury of rushing into open arms that would accept him, hold him, cradle him, and never shove him away.

" But what about you? What would you do if you could have one more moment with your mom?"

" Catherine or Sheila?"

The mention of the latter's name had a sour expression on Dick's face, the memory of that bitch handing Jason over to the Joker to be murdered still raw. He didn't know why Jason was so forgiving about the whole thing. He never said a bad word about Sheila.

Dick chose who he reasoned was the lesser of two evils.

" Catherine."

Jason thought about it. What would he do if he ever saw her again? The question was impossible because even after everything, he still loved his mother, both of them. It wasn't healthy love, he knew, it was more one where he would overlook anything they did just to be able to be with them and make them happy. He also knew himself enough that if he went to see his father, he would hate him for a spell but soon revert back to letting Willis hurt him.

And he didn't want to be hurt.

But Willis didn't want him anyway so there was no point to it. If he remembered one thing about his dad, it was that he loved to start fights. That's why he got so riled up with Bruce over Jason's death. For the thrill of the argument. 

He really wasn't right in the head, was he?

Grim-faced, Dick turned wordlessly back to his food when Jason finally gave his reply,

" I'd ask her to stay dead."

*

_Crying._

_Jason was crying. So hard his insides hurt._  
  
_He'd agreed. Said yes to it. He'd done what Fischer called 'consent'. It's not like he was forced to. So why couldn't he stop bawling?_

_He hadn't shed a tear when it was happening, maybe he had been too confused to or because he was told to be quiet, but when Fischer told him to get dressed again, go home, and not say a word to Catherine, he started tearing up the second he was in the hall and the door was shut._

_At first, it was just a few tears, slowly trickling down from his stricken eyes to stain his cheeks, but quickly they started coming harder until he was shaking, sniffing, shuddering._

_All the way up until he felt like he couldn't breathe._

_Jason was hugging his small, aching body by the time he eventually stumbled back home, hugging himself as tightly as he could but he still felt like it wasn't enough. His fingers were curling into hooked talons that burrowed into his arms, leaving bloody crescent marks similar to the ones ingrained into his hips._

_Jason's overwrought mind couldn't tell if the marks were ever coming off. He was terrified that they might be permanent._

_It was long past ten pm when he came back._

_" Jason, what happened?" Catherine cared a minuscule amount when she asked, more likely out of curiosity than concern for him. There was only a small chance his fraught state triggered the crumb of maternal instinct she may have in her._

_But Jason couldn't reply, couldn't explain it to her because he didn't understand what happened. One minute he and Fischer had been bathing Adelie and everything was normal and then..._

_He kept crying, gasping for breath and on the verge of hysterics. It was the first time he was experiencing what he would later come to learn was called a panic attack._

_' I'll be careful not to hurt you.' Fischer had promised before it got bad. Why did he lie? Why did Jason feel like he was falling to pieces?_

_Catherine tried extracting information from him for the brief second until she noticed the money scrunched up in his trembling fist, damp from his fit of tears. Money Fischer had put into his hands before shoving him out of the door._

_It was about thirty dollars or so. Yep, thirty dollars was the total worth of Jason's innocence._

_Catherine took the bills, carried him to bed, and gave him half an ibuprofen that was meant to calm him down. That was the first time she ever tucked him in. She even pulled the blanket over his shoulders and eased it carefully around him, as if she knew how tender every muscle was._

_" M - mommy-" Jason whined out of his abraded and abused mouth when the drug started to take effect but didn't leave him feeling any less decrepit or emotionally destroyed. And  Catherine didn't correct him on what to call her that time._

_He stretched out his hand to her and when she almost took it, Jason withdrew like he'd been burned. The last thing he wanted was for her to touch him, for anyone to touch him, but he craved something so badly from her._

_What was it? Comfort? Security? Safety?_

_He might not be sure what he wanted from Catherine, but he sure as hell knew he wanted his dad. Things like this never happened when he was around._

_" Daddy - I - I want Daddy." Jason pleaded with Catherine more than he made a statement. By now his crying had softened as the drug forcibly made him drowsy._

_" He's not coming, Jason."_

_That made him weep again, reopened the barely closed floodgates and Catherine didn't care to stay with him any longer. No doubt she was tired of Willis's and Sheila's bastard son wailing for supposedly no reason._

_Jason heard her go out shortly after that, probably to buy drugs with the money he had made and sacrificed himself for. She never even asked where he got it._

_Jason didn't care what she did with it though, he only wanted for it to stop hurting and for his dad to come back. He didn't even know why he wanted Willis when all he ever did was yell and be mean._

_But he wanted his dad._

_But he never came._

_Jason eventually cried himself into a drug-induced sleep and when he woke up the next morning he didn't feel any better. He was still sore and wanted to break down all over again._

_But he couldn't because the small sum of money was quickly spent and although he avoided Fischer like he now knew he should have from the beginning,   he needed to keep Catherine happy._

_Money made her happy. She never wondered where it came from._

_Or just didn't care._

_It wasn't long until visiting Fischer for money making reasons became a routine thrice a week thing. Jason didn't want to play with him or Adelie anymore. He just wanted to get it over and done with as fast as he could so he could put his clothes back on, go home, and play with his cars._

_And Fischer obliged with the arrangement because he was a good neighbour who 'cared' about Jason._

_Jason stopped crying after the first ten or so times and for his sixth birthday, he got a cock down his throat._

_*_

Carding his fingers through Jason's overgrown white on black locks, Dick sighed softly, taking care to keep the exhale of air quiet so as not to wake his restlessly sleeping brother.

Although he'd sworn he was only staying for the food, Jason had drifted off somewhere between the priest hurling himself out of the window and the end credits rolling because only he could pass out during the climax of the movie.

And Dick was more than happy to smooth back Jason's hair and let him lean on his shoulder for as long as he slept. Hopefully, until morning came.

He himself wasn't that happy, however. Dick had hoped to learn what was pressing on Jason's heart and maybe help him if he could.

And that plan had gone to hell.

But at least Jason seemed to be feeling a bit better. Comforted maybe.

Judging by the bizarre and out of place question he presented earlier, Dick suspected it was something to do with either Catherine or Willis. Maybe even Sheila?

But Jason never spoke about his parents, never thought about them as far as  Dick knew, and rarely wasted a day being upset over them.

Could it really be one of the three beasts for parents that had him so wound up and worn out?

Dick thought about it, thought about calling Bruce to see if he knew what the real problem was, but then decided against it. Jason was entitled to his own privacy and would share his troubles when he was ready.

Besides, pushing Jason meant he would push back harder.

And often times, that meant someone was going to get hurt.

Dick continued making a fuss of Jason's hair, running his fingers through the thick dark locks and partially falling asleep himself. He eventually stopped what he was doing with his hand and allowed for it to fall onto Jason's shoulder, arm remaining around him.

Jason may be bigger and stronger than Dick, but he was still his little brother and every now and again, Dick couldn't resist the protective urge to enlace him and protect him.

Even if that was only in his sleep.

Dick was halfway to dozing off, soothed by listening to his own and Jason's breathing intertwining and the comforting constant _thump, thump, thump_ of his brother's heart beating inside his chest when out of nowhere -

_Crash!_

An ear-shattering blast of sound, glass breaking, filled the room. Someone - _someones_ \- exploded in through the smashed window.

And they were heavily armed.

Dick snapped awake the instant the sound went off and leapt to his feet, Jason not far behind.

It registered immediately that they were under attack and Jason's hands were already going to his empty holsters for the guns Dick had removed unbeknownst to him in order to make him more comfortable.

" Crap!" he exclaimed when his hands came back empty and he had to take the first guy who jumped him with a fist to his face and a knee between his legs.

He howled in pain as he went down.

Dick was rushing to grab his escrima sticks when someone yelled out,

" Get Red Hood! Kill the other!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that was heartbreaking to write but pretty please, let me know your thoughts. Realistic enough or a load of bs?
> 
> Thanks for bearing with me.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason turned ever so slowly, muscles twitching and his eyes a darker shade than death.
> 
> " Get the fuck off me." He growled so low it was almost incoherent.

_" Sorry, kid. This time, you chose the wrong person to trust and your dad's not here to save you a second time." There is a resignation from emotion on her face as she says that, like this is a chore that irks her. She's standing beside the Joker, both of them looming above his bound and broken body._

_Nicotine. He can smell nicotine and tarry smoke above the thick sickening scent of his blood in the air._

_She's lighting a cigarette, casually trying a lighter for a flame as she holds the smoke between her lips. She isn't looking at him. She won't give him so much as meeting his terrified and betrayed gaze._

_Why was he so stupid? Why did he trust her?_

_Joker is laughing and raising the crowbar above his head. Already its drip-dropping and sleek with blood. His blood._

_" M... Mom... Pl-" His voice quivered and it's taking everything in him just to string that one word together. He can't speak past the blood pooling in his mouth and his splintered ribs piercing his lung. He can feel the soft spongy tissue trying to expand around the shards of bone impaling it. Each ragged wet breath makes him cry out._

_But she's not listening. She dismisses his pleas and turns away, the smell of smoke and her honeysuckle perfume fades with the retraction of her presence. She doesn't look back. She walks away._

_She abandons him._

_He can't hear the deranged clown laughing anymore, can't hear the hard solid smacks of cast iron on his back. The only thing he registers is how every blow makes him scream ragged while the smouldering tip of her cigarette dissolves into the circling blackness._

 

_CRASH!_

 

The harsh explosion of sound snapped Jason awake from the hellish nightmare. He thought he was having a mini heart-attack, breathing fiercely in the thick recycled air, only to realise he was in Dick's apartment and not the warehouse in Ethiopia.

There was no explosion of searing heat that swallowed him and his suit wasn't fusing to his skin like he'd expected it to be.

But the room was filled with men with guns. Beside him, he felt Dick snap alert and they both knew what was happening without so much as a second to register.

Surprise attack.

Dick was up before Jason and his hands automatically went to his holsters but fucking hell, came up empty. His guns were gone.

" _Crap!"_ Jason was halfway through exclaiming that profanity when someone tried to body slam him into the wall. Jason dodged and buried his balled up fist in the retard's deserving head. To finish it off, add insult to injury, he brought his knee up hard between his legs and undoubtedly murdered half of his sperm cells.

He howled as he fell.

In his peripheral vision, Jason spotted Dick going for his escrima sticks stored by the door and flooring two goons twice his size in the process. Compared to him, they were bigger and stronger by a half but his brother didn't rely on the advantage of brute force. It made Jason's heart swell with a tinge of something like pride he wouldn't acknowledge.

Jason, however, did require his strength in a fight and couldn't dance around their opponents like Dick could.

There were fifteen, maybe up to twenty of them. All howling to get their hands on the Hood. 

 _Oh great_ , Jason thought as he kicked and punched back the masses trying to encircle him.

More go-getters hoping for an easy payday at the cost of his capture. 

" Get Red Hood! Kill the other!" 

Jason's head snapped to who yelled that and if he'd been in the mood for a recurring pain in the ass, he would have gasped or raised his brows or something equally dramatic. 

The bald How To Train Your Dragon reject from that night at the strip club was here, and he had the biggest gun Jason had seen in a while. Anywhere other than in his own armoury, of course. The nose Jason broke when last they tangoed was now crooked and crudely set back in place. He was scowling bloody murder over the sea of thugs and Jason could tell this was going to get personal.  

 _Sigh_. They were in for a long night.

_Kick, punch, dodge, repeat._

That was the rhythm Jason fought to until one thing lead to another and he was back to back with Dick and they were increasingly aware of how outnumbered they were. Out in the open these common thugs wouldn't have stood a chance, but in the confines of this rat trap of an apartment?

That was another story.

" _Hood_ ," Dick snapped over the deafening ruckus while he buried his escrima stick in someone's face and sent a kick right after. The man was like a bowling ball the way he crashed into his associates and knocked them down.

" We gotta take this fight outside now- _ah!"_

In the middle of the chaos, Jason and Dick alike had missed Baldie yell _'get down!'_ to his crew, right before he hurled a flashbang to the brothers' feet.

The explosion of heat, blinding white light and shrill noise would have done much worse than stunned them and sent them crashing to the floor, were it not for their body armour.

 _Wait_ \- Jason recalled he hadn't taken his suit off but couldn't remember Dick wearing his after they came in.

Was he okay?!

Jason's senses were, however, too jumbled up from the bang to see where Dick was as he laid flat with his face against the hard ground.

Seconds later, hands grappled around Jason's wrists and twisted his arms behind his back with a crack from one shoulder. They yanked him roughly to his feet, ignoring his protesting and the grunt of discomfort.

He blinked back the white dots that dominated his field of sight and scarcely made out the thugs hauling Dick up by his arms a meter or two away. There was blood on the side of his face but he was awake, though equally disoriented himself.

Jason's ears were ringing like a son-of-a-bitch and he felt drunk for minutes, head swimming, as Baldie came right up to him and said something with a sneer but Jason didn't hear what it was.

He was relieved of that as he was sure it saved him some brain cells.

Fuck. He needed to get them out of this and now.

Jason's gaze travelled lazily across the room and the faces of the dozen thugs with guns pointed at him, his senses fast returning and things were beginning to make sense again.

Like the fact that he and Dick were in a crapload of trouble.

" Not so invincible now are you, Hoody?" Baldie's face came out of nowhere, less than an inch from Jason's, and Jason could smell the bitter guff of cheap cigars on his breath.

He scrunched up his nose.

" Get your guys off me and I'll make another reevaluation for you, asshole." Jason spat, blood on his teeth and his glare menacing. He felt far less intimidating without his hood.

In his head he was vulnerable and he knew it.

" Tempting but no." Baldie replied, one corner of his mouth teetering upwards in a half-baked smirk of contempt.

Jason was sure he thought he looked scary.

" The boss is paying handsomely for your ass and we can't risk you slipping through our fingers again."

" Who's the boss? Black Mask or did Penguin finally grow a set and start eliminating competition?"

" You'll find out soon enough, don't you worry, Red." The big oaf seemed captured by Jason's face and the longer he stared so openly, the more uncomfortable Jason got.

But he didn't let it show.

" See something you like, dickward?" He grinned despite himself, arrogant facade never failing him. He could feel Dick's eyes on him, intent but dazed, from across the room and could tell he was concerned.

But not properly. There were eight different ways Jason could break their hold on his arms but he executed none of them, only leading them on at this point.

Jason was hoping he could extract some info as to who wanted him dead before he beat these asses.

" Always figured you wore that ugly ass helmet cause your face was disfigured or somethin'," Baldie extended his hand and soon his fingers were brushing down the smooth of Jason's cheek while Jason waited for him to be close enough so he could get a good nutshot.

So close...

" But _goddamn_ , I was wrong. Hopefully, we don't have to give you to the boss straight a way cause there's plenty of things I'd like to do to a pretty little thing like you."

_".... You're so pretty, Jason..."_

Oh fuck _no_. Not this again.

He didn't care about that info so much anymore. Not as much as he wanted to be free, that is.

Jason snapped Baldie out of his haze of lust with the point of his steel capped boot decimating his chances of ever conceiving offspring.

 _No big loss there_ , Jason thought. Any kids this guy ever had were bound to bring the world nothing but misery. Although, that's probably what they'd thought about his dad too. And maybe 'they' weren't wrong.

He barely registered Baldie howl for not the first time since they met, or even the second, and yanked his left arm free, punched the guy's teeth out, and went to free his other one. The sucker who held it was smart enough to let go before Jason could get within an inch of leaving a fist-sized bruise on his forehead. 

From the thwaps of fists-on-flesh and the shrieks of pain, Dick had also broken free of his captors and was busily making them regret lacing their ugly fat fingers around his wrists. He wasn't even in the mood to chat with them while he beat their arses.

Many people didn't know this, but Dick was not a morning person ( let alone a before sunrise person) and god be with you if you were dumb enough to steal his sleep or break into his apartment with guns and balaclavas. 

Heaven forbid you did both at once.

Free though they were, Jason made the quick and obvious assessment that they weren't going to be able to take out all these guys with their cramped fighting conditions. It was only a  matter of time before they got caught again and possibly not get so lucky as to get away.

Since they weren't exactly swimming in options, Jason yanked a tear gas canister from the holster around his waist - which Dick had left despite taking his guns - and pulled the pin out with his teeth. The small rusty metal bit tasted bitter on his tongue and spitting it out the side of his mouth, he swung his arm far and tossed the canister into the middle of the sea of thugs.

It hissed before it went off, thick grey gas quickly filling the room and with it, causing a cacophony of violent coughing and people walking into each other. Thuds and crashes were sounding off all around them.

Covering his lower face with his sleeve, Jason coughed and his eyes watered as he made his way across the fallen bodies. He squinted, his vision stinging and felt his way to the kitchen door. The gas hadn't spread into that room yet and he quickly sighted the blurry red outlines of his helmet, sitting on the counter.

Jason grabbed it in both hands and unceremoniously shoved it over his head. _Click_ , the air cache sealed and locked it firmly in place.

Inside the hood, there was a glowing dull green smudge in the corner above the left eye and Jason took a second to figure out what it was.

A _smile_.

Did Dick really draw a smile in his helmet?

Jason was going to have a word with him later. Possibly one concerning a canister of spray paint and Dick's hot new motorbike.

The filtered oxygen lessened the burning in his lungs and the heat vision he set it on didn't make it hard to spot Dick when he reentered the wrecked living room. His brother had grabbed his mask at one point or another, and it protected his vision but breathing wise he wasn't doing so good. He kept his arm over his lower face, coughing.

He also wasn't moving right, sluggish and a bit uncoordinated.

Had he gotten hurt in the fight? He must have, especially when the flashbang went off right next to them.

It was a very real possibility and Jason didn't waste further time on Baldie or the thugs. He grabbed Dick's arm, slung it over his shoulder, and started walking him towards the door.

Dick's coughing was worsening, turning harsh and hard enough to wrack his body. From the blood on the side of his face, Jason was fairly sure he had a grade three concussion, hence the sluggishness and disorientation.

" It's okay, bro," Jason soothed in between kicking the face of someone who tried to grab his ankle.

A crack from his nose, a splatter of blood, and the fool didn't try it again.

Jason shifted Dick's weight on his shoulder as they stepped outside of the apartment and into the dank hallway, where the air was somewhat clearer if burden to a hint of mould.

" C'mon. Let's get you home so Alfie can fix you up."

 

*

  
" That's it, Jason. I'm pulling you off the streets until we find who's doing this and stop them."

Jason gaped, lips parted and eyes disbelieving. Was Bruce fucking kidding him right now?

The hard set and commanding expression etched into Bruce's face told otherwise as he stood a meter away, unwittingly looming over Jason with the foot of added height he had to his advantage.

" You can't be serious, B." Jason said once the initial shock passed by.

" Don't fight me on this, Jason. You are not leaving this mansion until the threat is neutralized." 

Something in Jason tripped and fell hard over the order and he practically exploded into smithereens.

" Like hell I'm not!" He threw his arms to the sides as was his habit, his voice carrying over the bats chirping on the ceiling of the cave.

From a little distance away, Dick watched them in growing concern as Alfred stitched shut the ragged abrasion on his temple.

" You can't just put me under house arrest!"

Bruce's jaw set, his patience drastically lowered by Dick's and Jason's latest near-death incident.

" It's for your protection and the protection of everyone around you." He kept himself sounding stern, like he knew what was best, but his tone had no more effect on Jason than it ever had.

" I don't fucking care, I am not hiding here while all of Gotham is on a frenzy, looking for me. Red Hood doesn't hide!"

With that statement, Jason turned on his heel with the intention of storming out of the cave, when Bruce's hand shot out and his fingers curled tight around Jason's arm.

Jason turned ever so slowly, muscles twitching and his eyes a darker shade than death.

" Get the fuck off me." He growled so low it was almost incoherent.

Bruce wasn't intimidated, didn't comply, just met his glare head-on.

Yelling never worked with Jason, maybe it was time to give explaining a shot?

" There are too many things scrambling your judgement right now, Jason. You're much safer if you stay here."

" So you keep saying but I can take care of myself."

Bruce sighed upon the return to this topic.

" No one is questioning that." He let go of the arm and Jason snatched it back, defiantly glaring up at him but keeping his lip buttoned while Bruce tried to make his explanation reasonable.

" You can still go out on patrol, you don't have to stay locked up here."

" But I have to go _with_ you, don't I?" Jason spat and tipped his head upward a degree.

" Yes. You need someone to watch your back and..... And I would _prefer_ if it were me." Bruce swallowed heavily before that last part, as if it was hard to get out of his mouth. Almost as heavy as a tonne of bricks and near as unpleasant.

Bruce wasn't an emotions kinda guy, Jason knew, at least not openly. His flash flood of anger dwindled to small flames. Bruce always hit him most effectively when he showed genuine concern.

He was still pissed off by being told what to do, but less so than before.

" _Fine_." He eventually said with an annoyed sigh that pushed his cheeks out.

" But only for a few days, until this bastard is caught and brought to that thing you call _justice_."

Bruce looked affected by a tinge of something. Maybe not exactly relief but definitely nearing those parts. It was infamously difficult to read by his expression what he was thinking.

" Thank you. We can start our search by finding out how they tracked you to Dick's apartment."

*

_~21 years ago~_

  
_" I took eight pregnancy tests and they all came back positive. I'm pregnant, Willis," she locked stares with him before finishing what he was already dreading to hear, " and it's your baby."_

_The park they'd met at was noisy, abuzz with the chirping of birds, the laughter of children and dogs barking in the full enjoyment of a beautiful summer day, but it all fell to deathly silence when she said that._

_The world stopped revolving in its axis._

_Eyes wide, Willis gaped in disbelief at Sheila, the woman who was most certainly not his wife or even his side chick. In fact, he hardly knew her outside of their passionate fling one drunken night, almost two months ago._

_This couldn't be true._

_" What? M - mine? You're sure?" He hadn't meant to say that last part, the sheer shock and sudden weight of this avalanche of news severely enabling his ability to think._

_He couldn't be a father. Not with his lifestyle and certainly not through another woman._

_Sheila's angry blue stare narrowed and her full upper lip curled back._

_" Of course I'm sure! You think I'm a slut?" Her voice was raised and Willis was afraid the wrong person would hear the fine details of his affair with the doctor who had tended to Catherine during one of her many overdoses._

_At the time, Sheila's seductive smile and the captivating scent of her honeysuckle perfume had been too much to resist. And here was the result of his weakness._

_" No, that's not what I'm saying. It's just that - I-" Lost for words, Willis's gaze landed heavily on her belly and the small bump that was forming there, pushing and straining against the tight waistline of her jeans. She was already putting out._

_And soon it would be obvious._

_God. This was bad. This was very bad._

_'I'm gonna fuck this kid up' was among the things going through his mind. Because he inevitably would. Willis had a long history of ruining everything around him._

_" You're really... Pregnant?" He insensibly murmured to himself. He could feel Sheila roll her eyes._

_Despite that, Willis reached out his hand and placed it over the shape of the unborn child growing inside of her to verify it was real and not the backlashing delusions caused by a new drug he was on._

_Sheila let him feel it, though clearly, she was impatient. Willis couldn't keep his hand from trembling as it rested on the rounded bulge of her abdomen. There was warmth there, life. He'd read in some catalogue in a hospital waiting area that at this age, the embryo weighed an ounce and was less than the size of a lime._

_His shaking stopped and he froze when there was a tiny nudge against his palm through her taut skin._

_A kick._

_His baby just kicked him._

_It was such a small, fragile sensation that he hardly believed it had been there._

_The mists of denial were parting to reveal a world where this was real. This was fucking real._

_He was going to be a dad, whether he was liked it or not._

_His mind was automatically racing through longterm possibilities._

_Once it was born, the baby would be safe if Sheila raised it. Away from the thugs and gangs that Willis was involved with and away from Catherine, who would not take well to this if she knew._

_He would send money to help Sheila but for its own protection, stay far away._

_There would be several complications with Sheila working a twelve-hour job and her illegal occupations but they could hire a babysitter._

_Maybe they could make this work. Just maybe._

_" What are we going to do?" Willis finally asked, retracting his touch and losing the warmth of the new life with it. He hoped her plans were somewhere similar to his._

_He raised his eyes to interlock with hers, but hers unlike his, burned with the fire of a woman who had made up her mind. She looked certain of what she was going to do._

_" I only told you because I thought you should know. I'm not keeping it. It's a massive inconvenience for my life and my career."_

_Willis stared as the words left her mouth._

_An inconvenience. What a belittling term and one he had heard too many times during his life._

_" What? No! You can't do that, Sheila, not to our baby!" He snapped._

_She couldn't._

_He wouldn't let her. Five minutes may be the time he had known about the pregnancy for, but Willis already knew he would do anything to protect his child._

_" Like hell I can't." Sheila saltily retorted, turning her nose up and gripping the park bench armrest tighter, knuckles turning white._

_" It's my body, Willis, my choice."_

_" What about the baby?" He persisted, trying so hard to make her see reason._

_" You'd seriously kill it to make your life convenient?"_

_" It's not alive, Willis. This early on, it's just a cluster of cells." Sheila either genuinely believed that or didn't, it didn't matter because this was a life they were arguing over. She had performed enough illegal abortions to know that._

_" It just kicked! Didn't you feel that?" Willis exclaimed, the memory of the tiny bit of movement still fresh on his mind. The tiny creature responsible for it, however? It was a more prominent concern._

_" It's a reaction to touch. The fucking thing isn't thinking." Sheila had never been a good-natured woman but her temper was flaring up faster than normal. Only Willis wasn't scared of her or her bitch fits._

_Especially when the life of their unborn child hung in the balance._

_" Of course it's not thinking, Sheila. But it felt the touch. Felt it. Doesn't that mean anything to you?" Willis' counter-argument shut her up, parted jaws clamping audibly, and he hoped she was finally coming around._

_But no such luck._

_Sheila glared at him for seconds before rising and violently snatching her purse off the bench. She slung the strap over her shoulder._

_" I am not having my career, my life, or my body ruined by one fucking mistake." They both knew in a few short months she would have swollen ankles and stretch marks everywhere, all across her prized bikini body._

_And she wouldn't allow that._

_Willis surged to his feet and caught her by the arm before she could leave and make herself an appointment at the nearest abortion clinic, taking his child with her._

_Or then she planned on fishing it out with a coat hanger, something she had used in the past when conducting her illegal procedures._

_The idea made him sick._

_Again, they were staring at each other head-on. But this time, both were scowling as if making silent threats._

_" A mistake, yes," Willis said. " A mistake you and I made when we chose to have unprotected sex. That's on us, not our baby. Why should it have to die because we fucked up?"_

_Sheila snatched her arm back out of his grasp, nostrils actually flared with her anger. Strands of her hair had escaped the captivity of her layers of hairspray._

_" Why do you fucking care, Willis?!" She snapped, her outbursts beginning to attract the unwanted attention of spectators. But like everything side detail in her existence, she didn't care._

_" Both our lives would be so much easier without  a fucking brat leeching off us for everything!"_

_Willis hesitated when she screamed that and it hit him._

_Why did he suddenly care?_

_He'd known for less than fifteen minutes that he was going to be a father and could hardly deny the truth in her latter statement._

_Not having a child would simplify things, especially when he had a wife who was not the mother._

_His life as he knew it would be over and he would have a little one who needed him, relied on him._

_The baby would soak up all his time. The nights by crying and the days by merely existing._

_Catherine would likely leave him and want a divorce, taking half of what little he owned with her._

_So why did he care? Was he really willing to throw everything into the wind for this baby?_

_If he backed off and let Sheila go, she would terminate the pregnancy and with it, all evidence of his infidelity._

_They would never have to see each other or think back on this ever again._

_They could go back to normal. No baby, no responsibility of parenthood, no consequences._

_It was the easy way out and lord knew, he had a habit of taking those._

_But he couldn't let that happen this time._

_It couldn't be love that propelled his decisions as nothing could capture his heart so fast. Or could it? Wasn't that impossible?_

_Reasons and motivation aside, he knew he would anything for his little one._

_He could dwell on 'why' later._

_" You're not fucking killing our child, Sheila. I won't let you." That was a promise delivered through his clenched teeth and it was one he intended to keep._

_Sheila looked more pissed off than he had ever seen her, and this was after she'd had to go to work at six am with a hangover from their night of fun._

_" You can't fucking stop me. It's my choice, it's my body, and I'll be damned if I let this rat ruin it." There was poison dripping out of her words, thick and acidic. Sheila hated being told what she could and could not do._

_" Do you want your body ruined or your life?" Willis took care to make sure she heard the threat in his voice._

_Once more she was narrowing her eyes until she was staring through her exaggerated fake lashes._

_" What the fuck do you mean?"_

_" You hurt our baby and I make sure everyone knows about your illegal clinic in Crime Alley. The abortions, the fetuses over fifteen weeks old, the side effects on the mothers, all of it." He kept his octaves low enough to keep the conversation just between them despite the odd few people watching from a distance, but there was no question whether he meant what he said._

_Sheila's expression was one of momentary shock before it reverted back to anger. Her increasingly riled up state must have been causing the baby to kick and squirm about what little it could._

_Insult to injury. Definitely Willis' offspring._

_" You wouldn't fucking dare."_

_" Wanna try me, Sheila? You get into a fight and get punched in the gut, 'accidentally' fall down the stairs, fucking drink bleach when you thought it was water, do anything that hurts or endangers my baby, and you're done for. I promise."_

_By now the air around them was so heavy that it was hard to keep breathing. The strenuous tension between them had turned to flat out hostility._

_" You tell anyone and I'll make sure you get caught too. You're not exactly innocent yourself, Willis."_

_" No," he tipped his head up, " but do you think any judge will bother with a petty car thief next to the crimes you've committed? I'll get a few months, tops." And he was more than willing to risk that for his child._

_" But you? How many life sentences do you think you've earned yourself by now?"_

_Silence._

_Sheila was cornered and by the look on her face, she knew it. He was right. Her fingers tightened around the strap of her bag until the leather creaked and her knuckles cracked. Her teeth were bared, pink lips curled back to unsheath them._

_An invisible noose was tightening around her neck._

_But she had to agree to his blackmail or she would lose everything._

_Sheila sighed angrily and there was a growl to it._

_"Twenty-nine weeks and I'm getting the damn thing taken out. You take it and I never have to see it again. Deal?"_

_Willis' gaze attenuated as he considered the terms. Twenty-nine weeks was premature but far enough into the gestation period to ensure the baby would still have a good chance of survival._

_Its organs and limbs would have developed by then._

_If he pressed Sheila for anything more than that, she wouldn't give him even this little. She knew enough corrupt doctors and midwives to arrange for an induced labour without there being a medical emergency demanding of it._

_" Deal." Willis eventually agreed with a small nod. It was the choice that drastically altered his life within seconds, never to be the same again. This meant in a few months, he would have a newborn to care for in the middle of his less than legal lifestyle in an unsafe environment._

_But the baby would have a shot at life._

_One its mother would have refused to give it._

_Sheila gave him one last glower before she was walking away, heels clicking against the cracked asphalt path. The sun was beginning to dim, turning the trees golden. They'd been having this argument for what seemed like hours and it left Willis feeling weary and wondering what the hell he'd just gone and not even talked himself into._

_A baby... But it was his baby._

_Before he was out of earshot, Sheila turned to look at Willis over her shoulder. Her eyes glittered with the new hatred she had for him and the fetus she'd been about to kill._

_" If I go down, you go with me," she swore darkly and he believed every word. She could be a dangerous enemy, and one he just made._

_" And then your precious little baby will be all alone in the most dangerous city in the world."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe it or not, every flashback has relevance to the story.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your thoughts are always appreciated!

_It was over three months later that Willis saw Sheila again. Of course, he'd checked in on her several times since finding out about her pregnancy to make sure she was keeping up her end of the bargain, but he hadn't stayed long on those times. Just enough to remind her of the terms and consequences of their deal if need be._

_Her loathing for him turned to pure hatred before long. Sigh. And they hit it off so well._

_When Willis popped into her clinic one mid-August evening, she was working at her desk on illegal paperwork of some nature and god, had she gotten big. Well, big for Sheila, anyway. She had always been proud of being a size four._

_The tight skinny jeans and crop tops she had used to be so fond of were last winter's snow, ditched for looser fitting clothing that kind of flowed around her shoulders and baby belly._

_Her face was pale as her scowl was dark and Willis guessed she was some of those unfortunate women who suffered from long-term morning sickness. That made part of him glad. Pregnancy was never an all-around enjoyable experience but he wanted Sheila to get a bit of extra suffering from this for wanting to abort their baby._

_" Sheila," he curtly said upon entering, the only introduction he gave himself. The sound of his shoes was loud against the concrete floor of her shabby little clinic that was nothing short of a warehouse with medical equipment and a few beds and curtains to form makeshift walls and create the illusion of actual rooms._

_Outside, you could clearly hear all the sounds of Crime Alley. Cars driving past without looking back and people murmuring so that the rasp of their breath still carried. Probably making a drug deal._

_" What do you want?" Sheila demanded, not looking up from her earnings charts on the table top. She was holding the paper slightly aloft, fingers gripping the edge so tight they left creases in the smooth white surface. In her other hand, her pen wasn't receiving any gentler treatment. Strands of her honey blond hair had fallen loose from her ponytail and were plastered to the sticky sides of her temples._

_She really wasn't in a good mood._

_Willis really didn't care._

_" It's coming up to six and a half months," he remarked, stopping a foot away from her makeshift desk. Sheila lifted her head and their gazes interlocked._

_" Yes. I know." She muttered. " Our agreed time. I can't wait."_

_Oh, Willis bet she couldn't. She'd probably been counting down the days until she could get the burden removed._

_" You were supposed to get an ultrasound done yesterday. Did you?" He jerked his head up with the question, well aware that Sheila had everything she needed to perform it right here in her little kingdom._

_" Yes. The damn brat is fortunately not dead." Sheila venomously told him and yanked a small black and white printed picture out from her stack of papers. She tossed it in his direction and Willis caught it mid-air, not breaking the disdain filled connection their eyes had formed until he turned the photo in his hand to examine it._

_There was his tiny son, in the grainy colourless picture that though small, seemed to hold the whole world. Willis could by now easily make out the hands, feet, stomach, the head and that part seemed too big for an infant, but someone had told him it was perfectly natural for a baby to have a large head._

_His son's forehead softly inclined down what was becoming his face with the distinct nubs that were his nose and chin and Willis could even see the lips, slightly parted, all coming together to form what would be his perfect little face._

_The corners of his mouth were tugging upward without his realisation or say so._

_Sheila scoffed and rolled her eyes._

_" Are you done? Can you go now?"_

_The sound of her ear-grating voice jerked Willis back out of his momentary happiness and he tucked the photo into his breast pocket, right next to his heart._

_They were glaring at each other again._

_" Yes. I'll go but I'll be back next week."_

_" Oh, goodie." Sheila murmured sarcastically, resting her chin in her hand. She looked exhausted with the dark circles around her puffed up eyes. Her excessive makeup couldn't hide that fact. She rested her fingers over the bulge in her abdomen and started to trail down it, a gesture so tender and gentle that Willis highly doubted she was conscious of it. Just an idle movement in place of her mind-numbing desire to punch their son dead through her own skin._

_Willis didn't say anything more and started to head for the back door he'd come in through. Like every time they danced this tango of unpleasantries, he ached in the act of having to leave his baby behind with Sheila. Sure enough, he wasn't the prime example of a human being and he sure as hell wouldn't be the prime anything concerning fatherhood, but he was not on Sheila's level and still didn't100% trust that bitch to keep up her end of the bargain._

_The foreboding sense of dread was as thick as the fact that he knew, one impulse, and Sheila wouldn't care for the consequences he'd set for her. Sheila was impulsive as fuck and reckless as hell, qualities he prayed to a higher power he didn't believe in, that their son wouldn't inherit. But with his god-awful genetics, the poor kid didn't stand much of a chance of being anything but._

_But they were now at twenty-seven weeks, just three more and he wouldn't have to fret over what Sheila was doing on the many times she was unsupervised. Then he could take his baby and never have to see her again._

_Willis sunk his fisted up hands further into the at times bottomless depths of his pockets as he stepped out of the building and into the retreating warmth of August's last rays of sunlight. The fleeting light of day reminded him that he was on a deadline, too. He'd procrastinated telling Catherine about this for far too long with still no idea how he would break it to her. He'd come to terms with the fact that she would likely divorce him for his infidelity and if she did, he couldn't blame her._

_But there was another more pressing worry on his mind._

_In three weeks Sheila would no longer be a problem, but he didn't quite trust Catherine not to pose a risk for the baby. She was a jealous woman by nature, and if she got drunk enough she might-_

_No. Jealous as she could be, Willis had to believe Catherine wouldn't hurt an innocent child when this was between the two of them._

_No sooner had he made that realisation with the menial crumb of hope behind it, that he heard something that made him jump in fright. A crash, like glass shattering, coming from inside Sheila's clinic. He wouldn't have paid it any extra heed and just kept going with his own problems to bare, had the crack of flesh-on-flesh and a sharp cry not followed suit right after._

_The immediate fear for him was that Sheila finally went and did it. Did something irreversible to his baby, but Willis quickly realised that was not the case here when a voice, angry, loud, distinctly male, boomed right after._

_" You'll pay for this, you fucking bitch!"_

_A slap and another scream, Sheila's without question._

_Willis didn't care about her, didn't feel obliged to get involved in whatever shit she had gotten herself into this time, if she had been by herself._

_The picture in his pocket itched and burned against his skin as he headed back towards the warehouse, walking at first but quickly breaking into a jog. The back door he'd left through - and remember closing - was thrown open and the yelling was getting louder, followed by a blow and ragged gasp of pain each time._

_Heartbeat fastening, Willis slipped soundlessly back into the building with the practised ease of a lifetime of keeping a low profile. As he did, his hand instinctively reached into his jacket through the open front and curled around the cold metal handle of something he rarely had to use._

_A habit Willis did hope his son inherited, learned, was to never go anywhere in Gotham without a gun. It was basic survival here. Willis' own father had taught him that, but self-defence reasons hadn't been why._

_" I fucking warned you to stay away from G-" Willis didn't catch that last part over the sound of Sheila getting backhanded. He snuck around a stack of boxes filled with cheap medical equipment, where he could get a clear view of what was happening._

_A man, big, strong, older than himself, and furious, was holding Sheila by a handful of her hair and screaming things into her face, incoherent by the rage bubbling in his voice. She was crying, shaking, mascara streaming down her face with inky trails in its wake and Willis didn't miss out on the split lip he had given her._

_The man was huge, 6'3, far bigger than himself, padded with muscle in places Willis didn't know muscle could exist, but the most outstanding thing about him was the red balaclava pulled over his face. He was a member of the notorious Red Hood gang but he was here by himself, which simplified things._

_" You killed my daughter, let me take something of yours!" He yelled, about to connect a fist with Sheila's middle when Willis stepped into view with the gun raised and trained on him. He cocked it._

_" Get the hell away from her." He ordered. Unlike he'd expected, Willis managed to keep the gun pointed at him with his finger sitting still on the trigger. He'd done this once before and shook the whole while, but not this time because the bastard was about to hurt his son._

_His head snapped in Willis' direction and though hidden by his mask, he could tell his features were screwed up into a fearsome glare._

_" Who the hell are you?!" He demanded, tightening his around Sheila's hair and making her whimper. The mouth area ofhis mask was damp with all the spit flying as he screamed._

_" Absolutely no one. Now step away from her." Willis growled that last part, the darkness on his face promising that blood would be repaid with blood._

_" This bitch your wife?" Quite off topic, he wanted to know that while he gave Sheila a rough shake for emphasis. It made her wail louder and Willis wished she's just shut the fuck up for one goddamn minute._

_" Not my wife," he gave a small jerk of his as an indication to her abdomen, " but that is my baby." He didn't know why he told him that because clearly, this asshole didn't mind hurting Sheila when she was so obviously pregnant._

_" So, an illegitimate child?" he tipped his head and though Willis couldn't see his face, he knew something on it shifted into a different expression._

_" My daughter was as fucking dumb as you two," he began, turning around to entire face Willis, still holding Sheila by a handful of her hair._

_" Went around town dressed like a slut, whoring herself out. Jumping on anything with a dick and didn't care about condoms or birth control. Then one day she got herself knocked up by a damn kid from my gang."_

_Willis' eyes shifted from him to Sheila then back to him while he rambled, asking himself why the hell this man was pulling the evil villain monologue thing now? Was it just to vent? So long as he was talking, however, he wasn't putting the baby at risk so he preferred this scenario._

_" And then she decided to get an abortion and this bitch," he shook Sheila again, " is the one who did it. And you know what?"_

_".... What?" It appeared as if thought he wanted Willis to ask that and Willis complied because he was all for not pissing this guy off anymore right now._

_" She's fucking dead! My Gracie is dead!" There was raw emotion laid thick in his voice when he yelled that, a traces of rage with an air of something acutely heart wrenching to it. Grief, Willis realised, but also something else. And it was dark._

_" I'm sorry." Willis said, calmly as he could, his tone sounding out of place next to the man's half shrieked out story._

_" I'm sorry that happened to your daughter, but Sheila did that. She's the one who fucked up, she's to blame, not my son. Please," this time it was a genuine plea,  " don't hurt him by hurting her."_

_The man sniffed loudly and gathered himself once more, tightening his grip on Sheila. Willis knew this whole thing just took a worse turn._

_" No." He muttered darkly, the distinct nip of intention to the word.  " My baby girl's dead cause of this bitch, so she doesn't get to keep her kid either. This is fair."_

_Before Willis could attempt to explain Sheila, in fact, hated their baby and pray he believed it, a sickening whack he wouldn't soon forget exploded in the wake of his fist colliding with Sheila's rounded belly._

_A wet gasp of pain, her falling back, the man proceeding to repeatedly kick her when she hit the ground, screams, so many things unfolded in a blur leading up to the moment where Willis pulled the trigger back, metal clanking on metal loudly, and the deafening bang tearing through the air was the last thing he focused on._

_He dropped the gun somewhere in between the man howling in pain and stopping his assault on Sheila, and Willis rushed to her. She was on the floor, blood pooling from her mouth on both corners. And she was gasping. He gathered her into his arms, propping her up._

_" Sheila-" Willis didn't count how many times he kicked her but definitely enough to cause serious damage._

_Just not to her._

_" I'm fine-" She said in between raggedly coughing and of course she was._

_From his left, Willis heard the guy's feet scuff against the concrete ground and fearing the shot hadn't deterred him enough and that he was coming back, but that wasn't the case when his head snapped to the side._

_Willis had been aiming for his shoulder, hadn't meant to seriously harm him, but the bullet had gone in a little more to the left than he'd intended. The ugly red rip beneath his collarbone was oozing blood and some was bubbling out past his teeth as he sputtered and choked on it._

_The man was twice his size, Willis kept telling himself, shooting him was all he could do to protect the woman gravid with his child. It was all he could do…. But he'd never shot anyone before._

_Willis was momentarily captured in the horror of he did as the man pushed himself up off the ground with quivering arms and started stumbling towards the door, hand pressed on the wound. He was swaying, feet dragging, but Willis remained increasingly grateful he wasn't coming back. There was such a quantity of blood leaving a trail...._

_Damn Sheila and the messes she made._

_" The fuck were you-" Willis forgot what he was about to yell at her when his eyes locked on the slick redness beginning to stain the insides of her thighs._

_She was panting, looked scared and in pain, maybe saying something he didn't register, meanwhile his heart had stopped beating and stayed frozen in his chest._

_Oh god._

*

Reckless, impulsive, those were the two things Jason had always been, even before Bruce made him Robin. Even before they met. And that showed as strongly now as it ever had when Jason and Bruce were on patrol the night following the attack at Dick's apartment, about to drop in on a mob meeting for answers.

Standard enough. Routine. Perhaps most routine in the sense that Jason decided midway into what could have been a successful sneak attack, to go in guns blazing.

" _Godammit_ , Hood!" Bruce snapped before he could straddle his own tongue, actually trying to catch Jason before he could slip through his fingers and cannonball through the skylight and onto the unsuspecting thugs below.

The crackle of gunfire followed and Bruce muttered numerous profanities under his breath during the pursuit. He dropped in on Jason's right and ploughed his elbow into the head of a thug seconds from nailing Jason in the head with a rebar.

" Thanks, old man." Jason grunted but there was a grin in his voice as he fired a rubber bullet into someone's leg. He howled. Jason was only using one gun, his left-handed one. Left was rubber bullets, right was loaded with the real heat.

Bruce was pissed off no matter how graciously Jason thanked him and they were going to have a word about this later. The recklessness, rash behaviour lecture was one thing by now, deja vu. 

It was a simple chore to incapacitate them and after asking their share of questions, leaving them tied up for Commissioner Gordon to collect. They were in for a long period of wearing nothing but orange, but they hadn't known anything about their employer and other than the arrest itself, that made everything Bruce and Jason did a complete waste of time.

Bruce didn't, however, feel such a great loss over the wasted fifteen minutes as he would have had he not had Jason under sight lock. This way, at least, he could ensure his son was safe...ish, while they got to the bottom of this assassination thing. 

Jason hadn't brought up Willis once and Bruce hadn't pushed it. Even if he was a 'talk it out' kind guy, that wouldn't have worked with Jason. At least, Bruce thinks it wouldn't work. He and Jason never really spoke. They exchanged words, yes, formalities, mission statuses, intel, the occasional bit of small talk from Jason's behalf, but never _spoke_.  

Talking about the hard things was something Bruce didn't see the point in and presumed Jason felt the same way. If he didn't, wouldn't he have said something about his father's sudden return? Like, why the hell he was back? Or how it impacted him? 

But no. Jason said nothing but Bruce could tell by his more than usual reckless behaviour and excessive force towards the crooks, that it had him very riled up, despite what he might say. Or rather, not say. In one instance, Jason neglected the use of his left-handed firearm and could have killed someone in his outlash, had Bruce not been there to stop him. 

Jason claimed he wasn't aiming for kill shots but that was hardly the point. Bruce let that one go on good faith.

The next disaster Jason caused was running off on his own again in the midst of a gangbanger shootout, chasing the mob boss onto the roof where something transpired that Bruce wasn't there to witness and the next thing he was aware of, was that the man Jason had gone after was laying in a pool of his own blood three storeys below, screaming bloody murder. He wasn't dead, Jason hadn't killed him, but both his legs were badly broken. Compound fractures, bones stabbing through the skin. It was ugly.

The fall had done that but Bruce would be lying to himself if he said the excuse 'he panicked and fell' that Jason used didn't make him think back on Felipe. Maybe this really wasn't intentional but Bruce couldn't say for sure. Benefit of the doubt, for now.

That coupled with the real bullets and the incident a few nights ago where Jason beat those gangsters half to death lead Bruce to a final conclusion of what had to be done. Whether or not Jason's reasons were good enough to be in the state he was, this was necessary.

 

" You can't fucking bench me!" Jason exclaimed furiously when he got the news, upon return to the Cave. Bruce walked away from the Batmobile and with it, Jason too, but he heard his son's angry footsteps thunder after him before he got so much as a meter of distance.

" It's for everyone's safety." Bruce explained with a dry crumbling patience after a night filled with close calls and catastrophes. He didn't need to re-think this, Jason's behaviour out there made the choice for him. Right now, he was a danger to all. 

" It was stupid of me to think you were well enough to make rational judgement calls, Jason. Until this blows over and you're capable of restraint, you're on monitor duty." Bruce told him that while he removed his cowl from over his head, dragging what was his second skin back and dishevelling his hair while he did. From behind him, Jason fell to stand with his feet landing heavily against the concrete floor, his stance tense and riveted to rage Bruce could tell by not even facing him.

" I'm well enough, Bruce. _He_ doesn't change that. I'm not fucking sitting by while you-"

Bruce turned around, heavy presence shifting to land its full weight on Jason. " I gave you _an order_ , Jason." That came off as the voice of a military officer, a general, instead of a father giving his son a talk. It was a harsh, sudden and solid reminder of his authority.

Unmasked and expression on full display, the tone and force behind it seemed to take Jason aback. His brows rose high enough to become blanketed by his white bangs and his eyes widened a fraction but he didn't remain like that for long. Quickly Jason returned to glaring at him with his upper lip curling up to bare his teeth.

" Yeah? Well, you ain't my fucking commanding officer." He snapped back, gloved hands clenching to fists harder than what wouldn't have hurt him. Shoulders squared back and so much anger on his face, Bruce had no question whether or not Jason could have intimated anyone while like this. Except himself, of course.

" And you are not a child, Jason. You're putting people at risk. Can't you see that?" Bruce half asked, half demanded in response, his patience a candle wick slowly burning to its limit. Jason ground his teeth together loudly and averted his gaze to something on the side for a second before returning it back to Bruce. His eyes were different this time around.

" I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean to hurt anyone." Yes, he did. They both knew that. Jason imagined everyone one of his demons, likely his father, with every punch he threw.

" Just...." Jason waved his arms up once, lost for words. His immediate fury had lessened and was now replaced with something desperate and needy. Something _childlike_. 

" Just _please_ don't bench me." He said. " I need to be out there, doing something. Helping find whoever this is. I'll be careful, leave my real ammo, but I - I can't just sit here and do nothing."

In another life, perhaps Jason's last one where he was still Robin, Bruce would have reconsidered because that did sound like a genuine apology in the request. Or plea. But reconsidering is something he would have done when Jason was a child, he wasn't anymore, he was an adult but on top of that, he was far more powerful now which meant that he was far more dangerous. If Jason couldn't - and most likely wouldn't - keep that promise of caution then someone was going to get hurt. Badly. And that was a risk Bruce wasn't about to take.

"  I'm sorry, Jason," he finally said after less than a millisecond of mulling it over. Bruce turned and started walking away again, back turned to Jason like so many times before.

" That's final."

*

Jason didn't know why the hell he listened to Bruce and stayed behind for the next patrol, benched like a naughty kid acting out at his school's soccer game. He was fuming about that, but maybe he was too tired to argue his point across? Trying not to piss off his good dad by acting out? Hoping that....

Well, it was stupid that Jason had this small idea in his head that if he stayed close to Bruce, no matter how angry he was at him, then he could protect him. Protect him from what? Jason had no damn clue but he felt on the edge of a storm. It wasn't the hit, couldn't entirely be chalked up to Willis, but there was something there. He could feel it.

Dumb, right?

Jason scoffed as he monitored the city through street cameras. The notion that he, _Red Hood,_ Jason _fucking_ Todd, craved for anyone's protection was ludacris. His brothers would laugh themselves into a stupor if they found out. He wanted to laugh at himself.

What an idiot he was. Who the hell did he think he needed to be kept safe from? The asshole behind this hit (who was probably an eyesore called Roman Sionis)? Willis? Jason was more than capable of protecting himself from them, or anyone else.

Still, as he flicked through the cameras, looking for a good vantage point on Robinson Park, Jason felt like something was continuously creeping up on him, anytime he wasn't looking over his shoulder. Was it his past? His traumas? 

Jason didn't know. Probably his paranoia, he reasoned.

But he knew that wasn't it.

 _" Jason,"_ Bruce's voice came through his earpiece, the first bit of sound he'd experienced in hours. Of course, Jason was still angry at Bruce for treating him like a kid.

" Present and awaiting orders, _sir_." Jason said in a sarcastic sing-song voice, swaying his head in tune to his overly bubbly tone. He glared deeply the second he finished the sentence, jaw clamping shut with an audible snap. 

Bruce didn't care much about his voice or the way he presented it. He got right to the point of his call.

_" Two-Face and his men have hijacked a shipment of pharmaceutical drugs meant for Dr Thompkins' clinic-"_

_Two-Face,_ Jason thought bitterly. The bastard who couldn't even do him the solid of killing his dad properly. 

_"-My position is north of the Bowery and I've lost sight of them. Can you get me a visual?"_

" Sure thing, B." Jason, grumpy though he was, didn't waste time on sulking while Bruce needed, actually _needed_ him to do something for him. Contrary to what most people -his family and Roy- thought, Jason could put the mission above his own foul mood. From time to time. 

He took no time at all to hack into the street and security cameras overlooking the Bowery district and hastily but throughoutly scanned every screen he flicked through until he landed on the one Bruce needed.

" Got a visual. They're by Miller's bank, heavily armed by the look of it." Jason was trying his luck with this next part. " Need backup?" Bruce had Robin with him, in theory, he should be fine, but maybe he needed-

 _" No."_ He grunted sternly, still annoyed by Jason's outlashing the other night. The wind was howling in the background and crackled to fill Jason's ear. Bruce was running but his breath remained ever still.

_" Stay there."_

_Click._

The call ended when Bruce hung up.

" You're welcome, _dick_." He muttered to himself with a huff and roll of his eyes.

Jason glared at the screen displaying the grainy figures of the tall, sturdy built and imposing Batman and the smaller figure of Robin, pouncing onto Two-Face and his thugs. Damn idiots. He should be with them, not grounded like he was ten.

He leaned against Bruce's chair, that was too big for him with a deep sigh, the weight of him heavily pressing against it making the adjustable backrest creak ever so slightly. As Robin, he used to think seeing Bruce sitting here was like a king and his throne, a king who guarded and watched over his city with a patient and unwavering gaze. Jason had played around in this chair whenever Bruce was out of the cave and he'd pretty much sunk into it then and now?

Now, it was still way too large for him. Or maybe it wasn't and that's just how it felt. There was a metaphor in that, he was sure, but Jason couldn't be bothered to think what it might be.

Sighing again and this time louder with more breath, Jason pushed himself up again and slanted against the computer table, idly pressing down on random parts of the keyboard because he liked the click-clacking sound. The edge of the table was rubbing against his middle with how close he was to it and it kinda hurt, a dull constant burn, but he was too bored to care right now.

Seconds turned to minutes turned to hours and Bruce didn't call again. Maybe he didn't need assistance of the cyber kind, or maybe he was avoiding talking to Jason because he was annoyed. Jason didn't know which it was but he suspected both. He was definitely getting the silent treatment. Yes, he'd behaved overly aggressively in the field, but could Bruce of all people really not understand why? After the whole Lincoln March/Thomas Wayne Jr thing, Jason would have thought Bruce understood what it did to your head when dead family members popped back out of the grave and caused hell.

Or would Jason himself be a better example of that than March?

And Jason hadn't even pushed that guy off the roof. He did honestly fall. But of course, Bruce didn't believe that. Sometimes, Jason was halfway convinced Bruce wanted to think the worst of him. Not that he could blame him for that, Jason had given him one or two reasons to distrust him in the past.

Shooting Tim, the whole Battle for the Cowl fiasco, eight heads in a duffle bag, he did kinda try to kill them all once upon a time....

Jason would like to blame his crappy genetics for his poor judgement skills. It was obvious where he got it, right? Like, how good could Willis really be at making decision if he hooked up with Sheila Haywood? Then for some god-only-knows-why reason didn't kick her in the gut when she got preggo. Jason would never understand those people who kept the kids they so clearly did not want.

Going over his problems and wondering about the mistakes of his parentage kept Jason's head abuzz and too loud. He needed to get at least some of the noises out before he went completely insane.

Jason decided if he couldn't help Bruce in the field, he could at least give him a hand with some of his unfinished casework. Mind you, cases he hadn't finished because he was too preoccupied with sorting out Jason's own steaming crap pile of a life. Bruce had told him to only focus on the current mission and any assistance he could give, but maybe going the extra mile would help him to get over his current bout of unhappiness towards Jason.

There were files saved on the desktop, each one titled after the cases they concerned. _Jeff Atkins [politician], murder 1. Organ trafficking ring [Asia], Russian mob activity [Gotham]_ , yadda, yadda, yadda. Nothing out of the ordinary, until Jason's eyes flitted to the most recent instalment of Bruce's in-progress casework, a file titled _'C. Rivera'._

 _That's weird,_ Jason thought. None of these others had just the name of a person, maybe the name of a person involved but there was always more than that. Curious, Jason moved the mouse pointer over it and double-clicked. 

He didn't expect much, other than a possible murder suspect or something of a similar nature but he felt like someone punched him square in the jaw when the file loaded and a picture of Sheila Haywood sprung up and tried to assault him through the screen. He almost jumped back.

At first, Jason couldn't make sense of what he was seeing. Why the hell did Bruce have pictures of _his mother_ saved on the bat computer? It lasted an indiscernible amount of time but with the initial shock and confusion fading, he began to see every other saved file there. Prison riots records, falsified death certificates, fake names, timelines.   

Then it began to make crystal clear sense what this was. An investigation. Jason took a second to comprehend that it was the fucking investigation Bruce had sworn he would make. 

Jason's heart began to sink into the depths of his belly, pushed down by his increasingly bubbling anger and betrayal when things started to click into place. Namely, that _he_ lied. Bruce lied, right to Jason's fucking face.    

Jason had asked - practically _pleaded_ \- with him not to do this and -

And he lied. Ignored what Jason wanted because he thought he knew best. Or thought something along those lines but it reminded him an awful lot of Willis and Fischer. Not caring what Jason needed from them and he had needed to forget this. Forget his blood parents and just move on. Pretend Willis hadn't been alive all these years and just move the fuck on. 

How could Bruce do this?

Jason tried and tried hard to focus on the info Bruce had collected but something happened and heartbeat fastening, his gaze was riveted to Sheila's face. Her beautiful, enchanting, deceptive and cruel face. He hadn't seen her or even a photo of her ever since... Jason swallowed heavy and hard against an invisible noose tightening around his throat. Stupid thing was making his eyes sting, too.

Not since she traded Jason, her then fifteen-year-old son, to Joker in exchange for her damn drug trade. She hadn't looked at him when that fucking clown was beating him to mush, only said, 

_" Sorry, kid. This time, you chose the wrong person to trust and your dad's not here to save you a second time."_

And what the shit fuck had she meant by that last part? It was long ago, at least it felt that way, he'd been seriously banged up and likely delirious when it happened, but he remembered those cold cutting words clear as yesterday. She couldn't have known about Bruce adopting him and there's no way in hell she was referencing Willis. The only thing that man had ever done for Jason was spend the night with his mother then knowingly leave him next door to a paedophile. So what  the hell had she meant?

But none of that could distract from the fact Bruce had done this - all of this investigating - behind Jason's back while he must have known Jason would be crushed if he found out.

Suddenly it made sense that Bruce hadn't wanted him to focus on anything but the mission, especially not on this folder but why hadn't he password protected the damn file or some shit that could have prevented easy access? 

Jason rolled his angry hardening eyes when the answer occurred to him. It was because Bruce _trusted_ him. _Trust_. That non-existent but often spoken of thing that Jason had done with him.

Jason stood so fast and abruptly that the chair was knocked back and landed loudly off its feel, the wheels spinning as he snatched up a thumb drive from the computer table. He stuck it into a USB slot with more force than necessary and started to copy everything from 'C. Rivera' onto it. He grit his teeth the whole while he watched the processing bars building up.  He'd been so fucking stupid to believe Bruce when he promised he would leave this alone. So fucking stupid like when he made the fatal mistake of trusting Sheila.

When the copying was complete, Jason grabbed the thumb drive in his fist, yanking it from the computer and deleting Bruce's entire investigation from the database. He could probably perform some magic hack with which to retrieve it, of course, but Jason didn't fucking care right now.

At least it would give the old man a headache or at least slow him down a bit. Long enough for Jason to get the hell away from this damn cave he longer had any intention of staying at. So what if all of Gotham wanted him dead?

Who the fuck cared?

Jason stormed across the cave, dark clouds spewing lightning brewing in the air above him as he headed for his motorcycle. His hands were clenched around the thumb drive and the sharp edges might have been cutting into his palm.

But who the fuck cared?

Certainly not him. Never him. There were few things he cared about this wasn't one of them.

Jason felt worse when he thought the bastard could have at least been upfront about this but _noooo_. Stab him in the back just like Willis, Catherine, Sheila, Fischer, everyone.

Jason knew he wasn't acting irrationally and knew Bruce wouldn't be sorry for this. How could he when he probably thought he was doing the right thing.

Jason didn't establish with himself where he was going before he was speeding on his bike, out of the cave's main entrance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ….. Impeccable job, daddy bats. Way to go. 
> 
>  
> 
> Kinda depressing how Jay has both his parents worst qualities, huh?


	8. Chapter 8

_...Bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep...._

_That was the sound Willis used to be sure could drive him insane before too long. The constant computerised beeping of the ECG before him, each sound matching the small lines and occasional spikes moving across the screen. But instead of growing irritated by it, he was terrified of the daunting moment where it might stop._

_Where it might stop recording his son's tiny heartbeat._

_Tubes and wires, many of which uses he didn't even know, ran into his baby from machines that each served a specific purpose of its own. His baby was asleep on its... His, back, small arms above his head and smaller fists balled loosely. They - the doctors - had him in something they called an 'hyperbaric oxygen therapy tank', which to Willis just looked like a glorified plastic fish tank with big enough holes in the sides for the nurses to poke at him ever so often. Apparently, the oxygen therapy thing was designed to help premature babies breathe. Breathe. A chore so simple on its own._

_Arms around himself, the cold leather of his jacket seeping through his bones and into the marrow within them, Willis kept staring at the tiny creature, the hustle and bustle of the ICU ward unfolding all around him going unnoticed. The term 'tiny' was a serious understatement with which to describe the baby. Twenty-nine weeks like he and Sheila had planned would have left him small, but a whole two weeks before the six and a half month mark meant his son could have fit effortlessly into his sleeve. Willis momentarily entertained the brief wondering if he would be small for life? He hoped to god not. Being small in Gotham was setting yourself up for an early grave._

_But beside everything that could have gone wrong and the miracle that the baby was actually alive, his size wasn't an issue at all. At least not an immediate one. The doctors had consoled Willis with the knowledge that the battery caused by that fucking thug had not hit the baby directly and by some wonder, been focused an inch to the left of where it would have been fatal. The doctors also added that with the right price, his baby had a decent chance of no severe health complications. Well, 'right price' wasn't exactly their wording but the implication was there. Since this was Gotham, money first, the life of an infant second. Or third._

_Willis was going to have to ask Two-Face for a lot of extra gigs if he was going to have any hope of ever paying for all this._

_He guessed he should have felt awash with relief over how the man's over the raw emotional state had made his aim slanted when he kicked Sheila, but in truth, Willis wasn't really feeling anything. He didn't know if he should laugh, cry, or just proceed to stare vacantly at his baby breathing in tune to the machine pushing air in and out of new, barely developed lungs._

_His baby was alive, he should be happy, right? He was, of course, too relieved for words and in any other circumstances that would have shown somewhat on his features, but every time any thought entered his mind, it was a reflection of that man from Sheila's clinic. The one he had shot._

_Shot._

_Willis hadn't been able to stop trembling since it happened and each time his mind involuntarily replayed it, it got worse. It had been so easy to pull back on the trigger but he hadn't anticipated or even imagined that the throwback would be so powerful. When he had seen it first hand, it was an unnecessary reminder of how deadly something as small as a gun could be._

_He didn't know if that man was alive or not, but he guessed not. That bullet had torn into his chest and he'd barely stumbled away. He would have bled out in mere minutes on the filthy street of a near alley._

_It made the shivers intensify and the never warm leather of his jacket creak when his arms tightened to hold himself._

_And there's another thing. In Gotham, under the ever watching and unblinking eye of their new...  defender, supposedly, no crime went unpunished._

_He won't bother with you, he insisted to himself, not when he's got bigger fish to fry with people like Roman Sionis and that new guy who dressed like a clown. Joker, maybe? Batman wouldn't bother with his crime. He wouldn't, right?_

_Right?_

_But possible false self-assurance aside, he couldn't stop thinking about it. Willis shot that man, a member of the murdering and raping Red Hood gang, in the act of protecting his then unborn baby. But would Batman buy that? Fuck no. Not from what he'd heard and apparently, the guy had a serious grudge against guns._

_And generally murder as a whole._

_They had that in common. He kept running it through his head on replay, that it was either that lowlife scumbag or his son. A split second judgement call he could never take back and gazing at the sleeping bundle breathing so softly, he knew he wouldn't take it back if he could._

_No matter the consequences and repercussion, or even the very likely and darkly looming chance that he was gonna go to jail once the murder was discovered, this would be the second thing in his life he wouldn't regret. Blackmailing Sheila out of the abortion being the first._

_Tentatively, Willis reached his hand into the tank with the baby and rested his index in its palm. Though fast asleep, on some deep-rooted and perhaps primal instinct, fingers over a third smaller than his own curled in response to his touch, enveloping him with such warmth and softness he had never experienced._

_Something, some previously unused and unnamed thing residing in the hollows of his chest, fluttered and blossomed into veins of feeling. Love, more specifically. Guess he'd been wrong about nothing being able to steal his heart so fast. Proving his old man wrong at less than five days of age, definitely his little... Little... Good fucking god._

_Willis almost slapped himself in the face with the all the nurses watching when it hit him that in the middle of losing umpteen hours of sleep over how to break this to Catherine, how he was going to pay for these cripplingly costly medical fees, get away with murder... He hadn't picked out a name._

_Fucking hell. He was already majorly sucking at this dad business._

_Then his son sniffled in his slumber. Holding his finger like that, there was so much trust in the gesture. Undiluted, unwavering, unearned, trust. And, Willis hoped, unending. He wanted to do anything and everything in his power to make sure his son should never come to regret that trust. And if he did, go to the end of the earth to reclaim it._

_"... Mm." Willis' attention was captured at force when the drowsy baby - who had no name - cooed incoherently, pushing its - his, tiny pink tongue out of his toothless mouth that was all gums when he gave a yawn that barely had his lips push part. The hand holding his finger tightened ever so slightly and Willis settled his gaze on that round face he so quickly came to cherish. The baby blinked heavy lead-lined eyelids that didn't really focus on any one thing, instead merely narrowed to flash a sliver of turquoise. His eyes looked kinda dull, not yet used to the light, but that would change come time._

_" Hey, baby," Willis murmured as softly as the breath he was holding allowed. He had to remind himself of how fragile his son - his son - was and that so much as a stray exhale may break him._

_The baby stared at him dozily, or past him, Willis couldn't tell which it was, as if trying and failing to piece together what the hell was going on. Gently, Willis lifted his finger from the fisted hand that didn't want to let him go and brushed the silken soft cheek with his bent second knuckle. The motion worked its way upward slowly while he remained in a state of being half awestruck by how goddamn soft the baby was, velvety almost. The dusting of fine infantile fuzz across his skin made Willis think about the resemblance between a newborn human and a fruit. Namely, a peach._

_Terrible name, he told himself before he could make the mistake of ever considering it. His son would come to hate him._

_Though the last thing he ever wanted to do was break the almost cosmic connection his eyes had made with those half-asleep lethargic ones, he knew he really should call a nurse over, just to make sure all was fine and dandy with his baby._

_Before he could do that, or even tear his concentration away from who held it, he heard the by now irritatingly familiar click, click, click of the sharpened points of heeled shoes on the faultlessly smooth linoleum floor._

_He knew it was Sheila before he ever bothered turning around. His hand remained pressing lightly in their son's face and he regarded her with what could be understated as displeasure. It was an unspoken must that he stay as a barrier between her and the baby. The vibes emanating from her in waves were nothing short of malicious._

_Despite that, Sheila was pale, ashen, puffy black circles growing around her eyes, and a dark crusted scab forming over the split left in her bottom lip. She really shouldn't be walking around, he thought, not after what happened, but she was as headstrong as she was a temptress. 'My way or no way' kinda gal._

_" What?" Willis asked in a whispery tone rather than the demanding as was second nature by now when it concerned her, but he was not about to risk startling his son._

_Sheila didn't care about that, or even look at the being that had held up residence in her body recently, but adopted a voice no louder than his at that moment because she didn't want this to be heard when it was between just the two of them._

_" He was the leader of the Red Hood gang, Dante Murs." Sheila's gaze felt hard the way it pushed on his and Willis' heart skipped a beat when his brain took in the use of past tense._

_" And you killed him. This isn't just going to blow over, Willis. There will be some serious consequences now that Gotham's worst have you in the rifle's eye. And," She flicked a finger in gesture toward the baby, who gazed dozily at her without the hint of an idea she had wanted to kill him._

_Pray he never knew._

_" You've got a bit more at risk now."_

_Already aware of this recycled  information, he demanded, " What do you want, Sheila?" Willis growled, because she did want something. She wasn't telling him how bad he knew this was for the sake of hanging it over his head._

_" To help you. You and baby over there - Cathy too - will be strung up by the guts from a streetlight before tomorrow if the Hoods find out about Dante. Unless," she smiled like the wicked witch she was, " you have help from someone with connections to the underbelly and friends in high places."_

_While she spoke, Willis felt his son's clumsy fingers close around his thumb, so preciously oblivious to what was going on as he tried to tug it into his mouth. Meanwhile, Willis had Sheila caught in a distrusting glare. This was a trick and there were no good options right now._

_But she wasn't wrong about his family's fates at the Hoods' hands._

_Seeing he'd taken the bait she offered, Sheila's cat-like smile widened and this time reached her eyes._

_" Listen up. Here's what I'm going to need you to do for this to go away..."_

*

Jason ended up driving through Gotham for hours until his bike inevitably ran outta gas, which was sooner than he'd expected. He realised it had slipped his mind to refuel it back at the Cave. Bruce would have lectured him on that.

Jason ditched the now useless vehicle at his safehouse and with it, his uniform, trading it in for a sweatshirt of his aliases' trademark colour and worn out jeans growing thin at the knees. He kept his holster and gun, the one concealed by his clothing and pressing against his chest in its cold, solid and familiar way. The only protection he could rely on, tonight Jason could glean no comfort from its presence and it just added more weight onto his already leaden shoulders. 

 

_" Red Hood, where are you?"_

 

Fuck. Jason had forgotten he'd never taken the earpiece out after he left the Cave in such a righteous huff. On the other end of the line, Bruce was testy and agitated because why the hell would Jason leave without telling him in advance? Who the fuck was he to think for himself, right? Wasn't that Bruce's point of view?

_Oh yeah..._ Jason had forgotten about the fact that he was supposed to have regular check-ins with the controlling old geezer. Fuck that.

_" Red Hood. Jason. Location, now."_ While he repeat asked that, Jason would bet his non-existent inheritance on Bruce checking on his tracker before the final words even left his mouth. Well he would be disappointed to find out Jason had dismantled it with the heel of his boot because by god, he needed his space to vent and he'd be damned if he let Daddy Bats ruin that.

He'd already ruined Jason's entire fucking week. Maybe month. Maybe year.

_" Jas-"_

The ear-grating sound of his mentor's voice came to a blissful end once he ripped the damn piece out his ear and dropped it into a glass of water on the kitchen side on his way out. Stupid to enable their ability to track or even communicate with him while there was an imminent threat to his life? Oh yes. Absolutely. Jason was well aware of that fact, but he was going out as himself, the man beneath the mask, and the people gunning for him were after the Hood, not Jason Todd.

Bruce would have pointed out a multitude of flaws in his reasoning, but Jason drowned out the voice of what he refused to believe was reason in favour of the constant internal demands.

Why? Why could Bruce just not respect his wishes for once? This was personal. This thing with his family. Really fucking _personal_. Nothing could be closer to the heart and he had no fucking business digging up Sheila's and Willis' and maybe Catherine's pasts to satisfy his own curiosity. Although knowing Bruce, he thought this was for Jason's own good but he was so wrong about that. Jason knew what was for his own good, and that did not involve re-anchoring himself to Willis' and Sheila's issues. He'd been dragged in the middle too many times, he didn't want to be back there.

Which is exactly where he would end up again, if they - him and Bruce -didn't just pretend Willis wasn't dead. He was back to cause trouble. Nothing else.

And Bruce was not about to let this go, never mind Jason stole his investigative progress. He would just regain it twice as fast as it originally took him. 

Jason pulled the cloth hood of his sweatshirt over his head, casting a shadow over his eyes to hide his face somewhat, concealing the glare at the same time. Normally he would have left through the window for its discreet nature, but today he hardly cared how much attention he drew to himself when he stormed out his apartment with the door slamming.

Another thing Bruce would give him a slap on the wrist for. Making a scene despite having no neighbours. And why did he have no neighbours beyond the obvious reasons? Because Jason fucking hated neighbours.

Twenty minutes of brisk walking through the dark of night where all he did was mull and brood, and Jason found himself where he often came to vent. Next to his family's apartment that he'd trashed time over time, Gotham's old cemetery was where he found his headspace and since he didn't want to go home - too many reminders - the cemetery is precisely where he arrived.

On the cracked sidewalk, Jason stood outside the rusting ironwork fencing and stared towards the headstones rising from the ground being blanketed by a veil of mist. The smell of rain was in the air and the heavy clouds hanging overhead promised to burst open at any moment. The guff of moss and decaying leaves was lingering in the area as autumn began to turn over summer's leaf and it just made everything look so much more decrepit.

Stepping in through the open gates - one hanging on by a single hinge -, Jason could remember a time when this cemetery was actually cared for and well kept. But that was before the new one opened up nearer to the heart of the city and everyone subsequently forgot the old place Gotham's dead were laid to rest. Except for Jason, he couldn't since this used to be his final resting place too. _Final_. _Resting_. What a load of crap.

Gravel and small stones crunched beneath the soles of his none-too-inconspicuous combat boots, the sounds of his footfall and the hoot of a distant owl the only bits of life there. The noises of cars and city dwelling didn't make it this far. That's what made it the ideal place to get all these damn thoughts out his head.

Jason was a born and bred city boy. He loved the bright lights and excitement and cars driving by his safehouse and alarms going off in the distance was like a lullaby to him, but he could appreciate the silence. It was deafening.

" Damn Bruce." He spat bitterly, perhaps never intending to do it aloud. But what did it matter when his only audience were his dead homeslices? 

" And fuck him too." Jason added,  knowing full well Bruce would soon be getting himself fucked. Literally. Coming up, he had that weekend away with that model or actress or whatever the hell she was. Surely he was still going, since after all, Jason's life falling to shambles couldn't distract him from getting laid, right?

Right. Because this _was_ Bruce and to hell with anything that got in the way of what he wanted. But what Jason wanted? Fuck nah. He could shut his gob and sit back while Bruce did whatever the hell he felt like. If he was lucky, maybe Daddy Bats would pat him on the head when he was done collecting discriminating evidence on his parents.

Yes, they're not good people. Sheila, Willis, Catherine, none of them are. He knows that full well, but he doesn't fucking want to know where his dad has been all this time and why he left Jason to whore himself out at the ripe age of five. He doesn't want to know why Sheila, the woman who lit a cigarette while he was getting his brains bashed out, is involved.

Jason just wanted to forget it. Them. Anything else was too painful. Dick once asked him why he never said a bad thing about his birth mom and he hadn't answered, but it was because he did everything he could to not think about any of them. It's how he coped.

And Bruce had denied him the bliss of playing ignorant to all this shit when he knew how much it hurt beneath the layers. He knew because Jason had told him once. About Willis neglecting him, Catherine hurting him whenever _daddy_ wasn't watching, Fischer and that shit with him.

Trust was the issue here. He'd trusted all those people and they blew him straight to hell. Some literally. He'd trusted Bruce with this when he should have known better,  and he'd been played for a fool.

It stung like a bitch.

And now he didn't want Bruce's help, protection, or anything he could have gotten from him. Going against his wishes was one thing, lying to him about it was another. 

Jason walked with his hands shoved into the depths of his pockets and his upper body rigid as a plank, late night wind ruffling the red fabric of his hoodie. The hood was beginning to slide down and over his head but he hardly cared. No one was here.

He walked through the desolate cemetery grounds until he reached a plot and paused by it. For a while he just stood there, not looking at it directly but stealing a lasting glance from the corner of his eye.

Just an ugly grey rock sticking out of the ground, the only thing making it indifferent to any hunk of granite being the dumb, meaningless engravings. 

_Jason Todd._

_Beloved son & brother._

  
There is was, literally said in stone. _Son_. Jason scoffed and rolled his eyes. He was way too insecure about fucking parentage and he knew it. Turning full face to look at his headstone, he noticed with mild surprise that the weeds that had been dotting the edges of it had been pulled out and the leaves moved from the rock itself.

At some point, he needed to tell Bruce not to pay people to maintain this stupid thing when he wasn't even in it anymore. But that time wasn't coming soon because he wanted the old man to waste his money despite it not being a sum he would miss.

Chin tilted up, Jason coolly eyed the surface of the ground above where his body _should_ be laying. Grass had grown over it again after he turned it over crawling out from beneath the crushing weight of it, the blood and tears had long since been cleansed by the rain too. Jason's fists tightened when he remembered the shards of splintered coffin wood impaling his fingers at ungodly angels and the way every raspy drag of air meant he'd be inhaling tablespoons of damp earth.

He swallowed, throat burning with the memory of it.

Jason remembered screaming a lot then but not much after that. Talia found him somewhere and the rest was a shit storm of bullshit history.

Just like his entire life.

Jason didn't know what came over him, what he was thinking, when he kicked out at the headstone as hard as he could. The solid unwavering surface deflected him, hurt him, probably broke some toes, but whatever red haze that compelled him made him do it again. This time with a scream of anger.

" Fuck, fucking fuck!" Jason swore, viciously pounding the rock with his boot and the stupid thing had the audacity to take it without breaking. Each connection was met with a lacking for rhythm _thud, thud, thud._

Time felt like a blurry infinity disorder and he wasn't sure when he ripped the nine from his holster and pelleted the grave with bullets. They ricocheted off of where he was sure he could see the faces of his dads, Fischer, his mothers, Joker, Talia, and a lot of other fucking people who sure as hell weren't there.

They were all in his own teetering out of sanity brain.

The shots ran clear and loud through the crisp air tinted with the taste of rain, the onslaught of bullets chipping the engraving from the headstone in pieces. Jason was focussing hard on the word 'son' with each pullback of the trigger and his aim had gone from random to trained as he obliterated it. 

Fuck Bruce, and fuck Sheila, fuck Catherine, fuck Fischer, and above all, fuck Will-

" What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Something, a hand, grabbed Jason roughly by his shoulder and threw him around. The fingers that momentarily burrowed into his flesh so suddenly gave him a fright he wouldn't admit to and he'd never heard the person approach over the sound of the deafening gunfire.

Jason got over it fast and was about to spit out some vulgar indecencies because he sure as hell wasn't in the mood for some random do-gooders getting pissed off by vandalism. But then his eyes met the other's and his face registered through his mind with a heart-stopping jolt.

" That's my son's grave you're destroying." Willis glowered and looked ready to kill Jason. Unbeknownst to him, he did almost give him a cardiac arrest.

" I - uh-" Jason's vocabulary collapsed on him like a cave-in. He threw his gaze to the ground, yanked his hood further over his head, and took a fast step back, trying to step last him when the front of his hoodie was grabbed and he was dragged right back. Despite his ability to resist he didn't.

" What. _The hell_. Do you think you were doing?" Repeating himself, his dad growled right into Jason's face, his anger too thick to see that he had Jason shaking. _Shaking_. Like a fucking leaf. He no longer remembered the gun still hanging from his tightly fisted hand. He could have shot the bastard right then and there. Could have made him dead again.

 And Jason really didn't know what to say, how to reply, because how the fuck should he reply without giving himself away? 

Jason regained himself enough to find his strength again and use it to shove Willis back as far as he could. He was stronger than his dad now, maybe taller too, and managed to near make him lose his footing with the force of his push. He stumbled meters back and gave Jason enough of a window to dart and it felt identical to all those times he was ordered into his room when his parents argued. Head down, hands in his pockets, trying not to get caught in the crosshairs of their rage.

Much to Jason's surprise, Willis didn't come after him to lay a punch in his face. Like he had expected. Didn't snatch his arm the way he used to. And why would he? He didn't know who Jason was.  Jason glanced over his shoulder to see his dad having abandoned care about the young man vandalising the grave to kneel by it and with his hand, brush off the ground to dust stone from the bullet holes.

It seemed to hurt him as if the bullets had hit him and not a stupid rock.

And Willis let him go.

Slowly, Jason paused despite wanting to run away as far as he could. What the hell? Why didn't he have a split lip by now? Or a black eye? He remembered his dad as being violent and aggressive. Getting into fights left and right. 

Jason's pounding heart and shaking muscles began to subside their tremors and against his survival instincts screeching in his ears, turned a fraction of an inch to look at Willis, several meters away but still very clear to see. There was that out of place glint of sadness streak across his features as he gazed at the ruined engraving. 

Was this really _him?_ _Jason's_ dad? Where was the rage and the pain and the violence? If Jason recalled correctly, Willis had once broken a man's arm for some unimportant and non-outstanding reason. While his _five_ -year-old son watched by.

By now, Jason was flat out staring when he should be gone by now. 

" What are you still here for?" Willis abruptly asked while not so much as glancing at him. So he was aware Jason was still here. Perhaps Jason's size compared to his less muscular one was what intimidated him into not trying to lay the pain on him.  

Willis' tone was crisp and cold like a blast of winter snow, but hardly hostile to an extent which could actually be considered threatening and it still made Jason feel as if a thousand guns were aimed at him.

 _Run Jason_ someone who sounded like him commanded in his head.

_Run._

He knew he should have but something wouldn't let him.

" Waitin' to smash up another kid's grave, huh?" Willis stood stiffly while he asked that, raising his head to look at Jason, whose face remained hidden by the shadow cast across it by his hood. Jason's breath quickened and his heart was trying to bust his ribs.

_Run!_

" Uh..."

 _Talking_. So they were doing this.

*

  
_Baby wrapped in the leathery brown folds of his jacket, Willis had him rested in the crook of his folded arm as he left the hospital through the sliding doors when finally, the baby was discharged over a week later. The night was cold for August and in addition to the jacket, his son was swaddled in the small felt blanket he bought from somewhere of no significance._

_Sheila, fucking Sheila, who hated their baby with all her being, paid for what would have taken him a lifetime to cover in medical fees. She had enough money from her illegal abortion clinic to be able to do that because they both knew she stood to gain more with him pouring all his attention into her terms._

_Sheila was leaving Gotham for god knows how long, she had to after the whole Dante's daughter thing and the Hoods would be after her soon, and she would still need someone to run things for her in the city. Him. Willis was good with numbers, he had a lot of practice from counting cards for Two-Face at illegal lottery games, and Sheila knew that. It wouldn't be difficult for him to keep her finances going and on top of that, Willis knew how to be inconspicuous about it, a skill also to her advantage. But he knew Sheila was going to have him doing a lot more things than just that._

_If she had more time to plan this, Willis was sure she would have picked someone else in his place, but he was her current only resort, not to mention easy to blackmail. Sheila had enough corrupt friends in high places to make even Dante's murder go away, which was the only thing keeping the Red Hood gang from making an example out of his family._

_The idea of what they would do to his son made Willis shiver inwardly._

_He didn't know why Sheila wasn't using her connections to save herself from the Hoods, maybe she couldn't, but that thought couldn't disguise from the fact that he was in deep shit. Whatever his son's bitch mother wanted, Willis would have to do or she would make sure he suffered. Him, Catherine, and the baby._

_He glanced down at his son in his arms, who was staring up at him with some level of bewilderment in those large round eyes. Or was he staring at the full moon above? Who knew._

_Willis nuzzled his cheek with his finger and pulled the edges of the jacket tighter around him, swearing then and there that he would never let Sheila or the Red Hood gang ruin this bundle of precious innocence. He wouldn't let anyone or thing ruin his son._

_Yes, he was in well over his head and the future wasn't looking too bright, but did he regret all this for his baby? No. Never. Jumping at Sheila's every command was durable when he was doing it for.... Right. A name._

_Willis started to ponder that as he took a shortcut through the alleyway he knew to be the safest one leading back to his apartment._

_This whole catastrophic and asphyxiating situation he'd gotten himself into reminded him of a tale he was once told and it came back to him like a bolt from the blue._

_" Y'know, kiddo," he started, " a long time ago, a man named Aeson lived in a place called Greece. He was in some serious shit with his brother and many others who wanted him dead. One day, his wife gave birth to a son and the man's brother wanted to kill that son. To protect him, Aeson had to give up everything, his life and his child, by sending him away to a place where he would be safe. When the brother found out, he had Aeson and his wife executed. See, baby? He threw everything away for his son. Because he loved him._

_There was a prophecy that one day, the child who was sent away would return as a man and take back his birth city. Back from the corrupt, evil brother, the gangs who terrorised the people, the injustice, all of it. And do you know what that man's name was?"_

_As he told the story, he looked down at the baby again and this time, he seemed to be listening with intent that defied his age. Impossible though it was, it was as if he took in every word._

_" His name was Jason."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this seemed forced. I did my best.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this sucks ass, it's because I'm really sick right now and my brain feels clogged up by a fog of dumbness. I also have not yet proof read, so forewarning.

  _Willis had been staring at the same spot on the ceiling for the past hour since Jason finally stopped crying and fell asleep, not daring to move so much as a muscle lest he reawaken the tiny form breathing so softly on top of him. In the less than spacious living room, he was laying on the couch with Jason snoozing on his chest and a hand placed lightly over Jason's back to ensure he wouldn't fall. Willis was caught in a do-and-repeat cycle of stroking his thumb slowly up and down the small of his baby's delicate spine, which had soothed Jason enough to lull him to sleep and any time Willis had tried to stop, Jason had stirred, so he deemed it safer to just keep going._

_Warmth radiated from the tiny body on his own, along with the soft biscuit milky fragrance that all babies exuded. It was really an addictive scent that swaddled him. Along with that fragrance, one that contradicted it as a whole lingered in the leather of his jacket, smelling of trace amounts of the various oils he'd rubbed into it to preserve it against water. The jacket was draped over Jason, partly Willis' chest too, acting as a blanket. The baby did have his own blanket, of course, one designed with infants in mind, but the biker jacket for whatever reason, soothed him in ways nothing else could. He rarely napped without it and Willis had quit questioning it and just went with his baby's strange addiction to the old thing._

_The half empty, half drank bottle of formula hung from Willis' hand, near touching the ground as his free arm dangled lifelessly off the edge of the couch, the only tension the bare minimum curl of his fingers around the bottle._

_You always heard about it, how children were ten times harder than you could imagine, how it was like shock therapy to one day not have a care in the world and the next poof! you're a parent with something living relying, depending on you. Yes, Willis had always heard gruelling tales from other parents but until he had a child of his own, he had thought everyone was exaggerating. It was only now he realised that they were understating. Sleep went out the window, routines and schedules swan-dived right after. Every bit of his life moulded around to service the little person he and Sheila were responsible for bringing into the world._

_More than once he'd found himself asking whether or not he had made a massive mistake. Those four am morning wakeups to crying made it easy to think that, so did the strange way Catherine behaved around Jason. She hadn't been hostile like he expected, nor had she walked out on him as she couldn't have been blamed for. She merely took in the news without an outstanding trace of emotion and ghosted through the house after that like nothing was new._

_There was no animosity towards Jason from her, nothing threatening, but also a zero sum of anything else. She treated life like he didn't exist in it and Willis wasn't sure how he felt about that, but it was a hell of a lot better than what he'd been prepared to deal with._

_Willis stiffened, breath hitting a barricade in his throat when Jason scrunched his delicate features up into a frown and stirred, tightening his clenched fists and turning his face from one side to another. But he didn't wake up and thank god for that, Willis deemed it safe enough to allow his breathing to continue. Though this was his first and only child, he was sure it wasn't normal for an infant to frown in their sleep and look to troubled. Perhaps this onslaught of mature expression was due to the fact that even before birth, Jason had already experienced the worst cruelties this world had to offer._

_What a start his son had to life, eh? Willis could only hope and pray it didn't keep going down as badly as it began._

_Gently, so gently, he lifted his hand off Jason's back and lightly cupped his head that fit almost perfectly into the cup of his palm. Willis began to stroke back the soft black strands of downy hair to the tune of Jason breathing, the caress of his breath brushing warmth down his father's exposed throat. He craned his neck and pressed a small kiss into the sea of hair._

_More than once, Willis found himself realising this was no mistake._

_He was halfway to drifting off himself, inhaling the sweet infantile scent, when he heard something shuffling beneath the front door then slide into the house. Groaning but curious, Willis propped himself up on one elbow and secured Jason to himself with the hand on his back tightening its hold. An A4-sized brown manilla envelope sat on the doormat as casually as if it were a fibre of the carpet itself._

_What...? Willis thought before gently, carefully sliding Jason off him and onto the couch where he could continue to nap while his father checked on that. Jason made some sleepy noise, muffled By how tuckered out he was but didn't otherwise notice the change in bedding._

_Dads and sofas were about the same thing, right?_

_After placing a pillow behind Jason's back to keep him from rolling onto the floor, Willis crossed the small, barely existing space between the living room and the front door, seeing before he picked the envelope up that it had nothing scrawled on it. No address written in black marker, no name, no return address._

_In Gotham as in any Place, they believed in the universal knowledge that a manilla envelope showing up like this spelt bad news. And really, could it ever be a sign of a good thing? Speculations regardless, Willis picked it up and tugged the pocket knife from the conceals of his worn out jeans, flicking the blade open and slicing the top of the envelope open in one fluid swish. A thick wad of documents stared out of it, right at him, and the first thing he spied was the alias Sheila used 'Chantelle Rivera' on the upper right corner. Great. Must be instructions from her for whatever gig she wanted him to handle next. They weren't big things, at least not yet, and last time it had only involved destroying any evidence that proved her clinic ever existed._

_Or was that a big thing?_

_After the whole Dante thing, cops who'd been on his payroll were looking into his disappearance with their own interests in mind, which meant they'd be looking into Sheila as a likely suspect, given the incident with his daughter, Gracie. That, Willis assumed, was why she left the city in such a hurry. No one would suspect a nobody like him to be responsible, so he was in the clear so long as he and Sheila both kept their ends of the bargain. However, if the Hoods found out who really killed their boss, the repercussions didn't bear thinking about. If he didn't have a wife and son who needed to come first, Willis wouldn't have cared at all whether they made an example out of him or not._

_But his priorities were them. Catherine and Jason, because the Red Hood gang wouldn't draw the line at gutting Willis for Dante's murder, they would move right onto his family next._

_But keeping them out of the rifle's eye meant that anything Sheila wanted, he would have to obey to the letter. It was a dangerous position to be in, but none the more so than the Hoods' radar._

_Sighing beneath his breath, Willis pulled the papers out, about to educate himself with what Sheila was snapping her fingers for now, when noticed a flicker of movement in the corner of his sight, next to the couch he left Jason sleeping on. He turned ever so slightly to see Catherine standing there above the sleeping baby, gazing down at him with an emotion Willis couldn't name. There was a kitchen rag in her hands and she was twisting it around her fists like she was taking some deep-rooted aggression on it._

_Willis frowned at the coldness seeping from her._

_" What are you doing there, Cath?" He asked as he approached, a healthy dose of caution laden over his voice._

_" Nothing." She said and a big part of him felt a sudden, unexplained worry. " Just looking at him."_

*

" Uh......" Jason went, aware that his vocabulary suddenly dried up like a drop of water in the desert, when confronted with why the hell was he smashing up that kid's grave? _His_ grave? Even if he could tell his dad who he was, that that was, in fact, his headstone, he couldn't give the reason _why_. It was a burst of anger, frustration, something that made him do it and now Willis was eyeing him down with a darkness that could have sent demons screaming back into Satan's lap. Jason could feel his eyes burning holes through the fabric of his hood drawn half over his face.

" I'm going to take a wild guess at this," Willis started as he moved his hands from his hips and crossed his arms over his chest, fingers curving to push a depression into his skin. " You're some guy who had too much to drink or a drug that you can't handle, out on the town with nothing to do, and you think no one will mind if you start firing that gun of yours at people's graves? _Kids'_ graves?"

" N... no." Jason dumbly said, still in recovery from the shock of meeting his dad here of all places, instead of somewhere more his scene, say a bar. The fuck was he doing in the cemetery at this hour anyway? Whatever the elusive reason may be, it really had his head twisted into loops, trying to imagine why.

" I.. uh,"

It was then that his dad must have realised he really didn't have the plausible - or implausible - means of explaining this.

" Get the fuck out of here." Willis ordered with a dismissive wave of his hand that screamed 'before I change my mind', and he went back to kneeling by the ruined and once beautiful headstone, grumbling something about Jason being lucky he couldn't call the cops on him and Jason supposed, he really couldn't. Willis was presumed dead, after all - what a father/son thing to have in common, right? - and calling the bluebells on Jason would just stir up an abundance of trouble for himself. Strange, his son recalled clearly that Willis _loved_ to wallow in trouble.

Jason breathed a quiet sigh, racing heartbeat slowing to normal and his brain rebooting like a computer to once more perform the act of _thinking._

All those things he had been itching to know, where had Willis been? Why had he gone? Why was he back? Those things Jason could scream to himself and deny he wanted to answers to, but it occurred to him just in case he'd been lying to himself, then here was the opportunity to at least gain some intel, if only to prove that Willis was here to cause some means of disaster like he always did.

It would be pretty fucking satisfactory to be right about this. Or would it? Jason didn't know what he was expecting from this.

" I'm sorry," Jason finally said with a long sigh and his shoulders pulled into a tense line lowering. " I destroyed your son's grave because.... because Bruce Wayne paid for it, the inscription, the plot, all this shit. And he doesn't deserve to call that kid or any of his other pity cases his kids." That came from the heart because Jason was and would for the foreseeable future, be pissed off at Bruce. And who could blame him, right?

" _What_?"

" Y'heard me." Jason rocked himself forward on his heels once while his hands burrowed deeper into his pockets. The fuck did he need Bruce for? He was gonna sort this mess with his parents out by himself, before Bruce got the chance. Because Jason _could_.

" I don't think Bruce Wayne is adept enough or even capable of caring for any of those orphans he takes in." Again, Jason sang words of truth with the mood he was in. Alfred did the majority of the parenting from driving him to school and tucking him in when he was little, all the way to making sure he did his homework ( which never needed reminders about).

" That's an uncommon opinion, kid." Willis told him as he rose and would have met Jason's gaze, had Jason allowed it from beneath his hood. He looked enough like a younger version of his father to, unhooded, be recognised by him in an instant. It wasn't logical he'd immediately jump to 'my son!', considering Jason was dead as far as anyone knew, but he would definitely start making assumptions like, long lost relative? Incredible coincidence?

" But like I said, get out of here. You're drunk."

" N... no. I'm not." Anyone in Willis' current situation would have made that presumption and it couldn't be held against him. Yes, yes Jason had looked very under-the-influence while attacking a gravestone. So how the hell was he going to convince his dad he wasn't tipsy?

" Yeah." He tilted his head with a bemused grin that betrayed how pissed off he was about the grave. But, like Jason assumed, Willis being smaller than him in this day and age, meant he wasn't going to try anything. For the first time in his life, Jason felt like he was at an advantage over one of his parents. Bruce, Sheila, Catherine, Willis before, all were always been bigger and stronger than him, able to hurt him whenever he was around them. And now? Jason felt a self-righteous tug of satisfaction at being deemed the threat here. It was an undeniably pleasant way to feel

" Sure you aren't." 

" If you don't believe me, that's fine." Jason said, hands up defensively, palms facing him. " But that's the truth." 

Willis was still dressing a sardonic expression over his anger, no matter what Jason said and _why_ wasn't really a question here. " Then I'll leave you here with your truth. I got somewhere to be anyway." And he turned and started walking away, along the cracked asphalt walkway. Seeing his back, turned and distancing, it felt like all those times before where he chose to walk away from Jason, and it gave birth to a swell of emotions in Jason's chest that he couldn't address by name.

" I saw what you said to Bruce Wayne!" Jason blurted after before good sense could cover his mouth. Willis stopped dead in his tracks but didn't give Jason so much as facing him. He stayed quiet and Jason remembered what this was. This was his dad's equivalent to saying 'start talking', an offer not open long.

" You said he killed your son." Jason eased into that and had once believed it himself. But that didn't explain why Willis thought so. Or why he cared now and not then, five years ago. Or fifteen years ago.

For the longest time that at have been only seconds, Willis didn't say anything and his posture had gone rigid if it wasn't before, hands deep in his pockets.

" _Yes_." He finally broke the tense silence and Jason was brought to frown by the strain pulling taut the word, like it was a sore subject or something.

" Jason. Fifteen when he died under suspicious, _uninvestigated_ conditions while on a trip to Ethiopia with that sick fucker." Willis side-eyed Jason while the spoke and Jason could see his teeth were clenched, words coming through them and eyes identical to his spitting atoms of fathomless anger. Did... Did he really _care_? No. No, he couldn't. Jason compelled the thought violently from his head before it could put down roots and fixed himself harder on the task of getting to the bottom of this shit, even if that meant playing along

He had to beat Bruce to the answer to satisfy his own sense of betrayal because he sure as fuck didn't need a dad or much less two of them. _Fuck_ dads.

" And you think Bruce Wayne killed.... Jason?" It was strange, to refer to himself in the third person like this.

" I know he did." With that, Willis turned back around to look at him and on his face, was an expression Jason hadn't seen since an incident he had forgotten up until now. The memory came rushing back like a speedster on crack, that when he first met that bastard Fischer, when he was only five, his dad had snatched him away from that sick pedo and _protected_ him, only to leave the next day and never come back. Something angry and vile was pricking the corners of Jason's sight and he crushed his hands into tight, stone-hard fists, wanting to punch Willis then and there because the presence of his father in his formative years could have saved him the title of child whore and that thing the rich fuckers he used to jerk off had called him. What was it again? Oh yes. _Jasey_ , a stripper name they said he deserved. That was when he was six and didn't yet know what stripper meant, but had had sex more times than he'd lived years. Again, he wanted to put his fist through his father's head. Both their heads

Willis looked as angry as Jason felt, only Jason hid it beneath his hood and the fact that right now, he had no choice.

" And he will," Willis' voice quivered with conviction, " _pay_."

" Well, I think you may need me, then," Jason said darkly, barely controlling himself from what those painful, piercing memories compelled him to do. He took a step towards his father for the first time since he was a child.

" Because I know things about Bruce Wayne that no one else does."

*

When Bruce came back from patrol with Damian, Jason was gone. Not helping Alfred, not located in the mansion elsewhere but the Cave, gone. The first thing he did try to contact him via earpiece while simultaneously checking his location with the aid of the tracker he'd planted. No, not the one Jason wore knowingly, but the hidden device Bruce attached to the collar of his jacket when he held him in his safe house, that afternoon upon hearing about Willis' status as not being dead. In the wake and experiences of Jason's lengthy history of going off the radar or completely haywire when something hit too close to home, it was a precaution he'd seen fit to take and now it was confirmed, it was a necessary one.

" Damian," out the side of his mouth, he said to his youngest, standing by and waiting for the next word or order like a dutiful soldier before his commanding officer. " Go up the manor and get Dick."

Brisk and professional as always, Damian nodded with a 'yes, Father' and hurried towards the narrow staircase that lead to the first floor. Dick was good with Jason, their dynamic once compared liken to a rabid mutt and its handler. If Bruce knew Jason, then likely he had walked off like this because something had made him bubble and boil. Dick was often the peacemaker between would-be father and estranged son, which made it necessary to inform him of this development. If he'd been in his home city of Blüdhaven or all of Gotham not after Jason, Bruce wouldn't have taken the time to inform his eldest when it wasn't an overly urgent matter. But that wasn't the case now.

After the way they had left things, Bruce knew whatever had angered Jason had to do with him. He mentally cursed himself and the way he had been callus and thoughtlessly treated Jason. He should have known he would do something akin to this.

While Damian fetched Dick, Bruce tried reaching Jason on his comm while the hidden tracking device showed him at his safe house. He was moving.

Although Bruce could see Jason's location displayed on the monitor, he went with, " Red Hood, where are you?" He asked, testy, agitated at himself after the dumb mistake he'd made in leaving Jason unsupervised. Jason didn't answer, as expected, but By the caress of his heavy, angry breath Bruce could tell the call went through.

He tried again.

" Red Hood. _Jason_. Location, now." Extend the olive branch, open a window, give Jason the opportunity to come back by himself before Bruce inevitably would have to hunt him down and carry him kicking and screaming back for his own good. Excluding the manor, no part of Gotham was currently safe for him to be in, especially if his irrational, irritated mind took over his rational one.

Which it would. Experience couldn't tell otherwise.

" Jas-" The call cut off on the tail end of static exploding through the tiny receiver. If a minuscule fraction of him had doubted Jason being angry before he couldn't anymore. His best guess as to what just happened? Jason dunked his comm into a mug of coffee or glass of water.

_Perfect_. Did he really think Bruce not being able to contact him right now was a good idea? At least he had the tracker Jason wasn't aware of. He'd blow his stack over that too if he discovered it, go up aflame with indignant self-righteousness. It wasn't common that he ever truly knew what was best for him.

Watching the small symbol of a blinking red bat following Jason's movements across the city, Bruce spied an anomaly in his computer saved data files in the far corner of his vision. Barely, he turned his head to look more closely at the empty space where Sheila's and Willis' information alike had been stored in a file. The file was gone.

_Dammit_. For the world's greatest detective, it was a cake-walk to put together what happened. Jason went prying through his unfinished casework, saw the investigation conducted into his parents, and was angered enough by it to run off without warning or notice of any sort.

Double dammit.

Wrestling Jason back would be harder than he'd thought.

" Bruce," came Dick's voice from behind, thickened and sluggish by sleep. His hair was a mess, stabbing the air at uneven angles and with the back of his hand, he was rubbing his eyes and stifling a mighty yawn with his other. With his slowly healing concussion, the extra rest was necessary and Bruce felt a tug of guilt for waking him, but knew he was well enough to be on his feet.

" Dami said you needed me."

From beside him, Damian stopped peeling off his Robin-costume to strike Dick in the only spot he could reach; his hip. The boy's elbow thudded into the curved structure of muscle and bone with a thwap.

" Never call me that again, Grayson, or they shall have to add 'less' to your namesake."

Dick, smiling fondly through the yawn, ignored the blow and reached down to ruffle Damian's short black hair. Ticked off, Damian swatted his hand away like he was fighting an army of bees. Bruce's lower lip stiffened. He was unamused by such childish antics when normally he wouldn't have minded.

He was worried about Jason, out there on his own, despite their disagreements while he was here.

Noticing his father figure's set, dark face, Dick inelasticated himself and stood with his back straight as a line, the way Nightwing would.

" What is it, B?" He glanced around the cave, expecting to see a flash of red or at least Jason's bike sitting next to the parked batmobile.

" Where's Jay?" He scrunched his brow, confusion written across the creases of his brow.

" Gone. Runoff."

" W - what? Where did he go?"

Bruce opened up the map of Gotham on the computer screen again and with it, Jason's coordinates and to his menial surprise that didn't show, his son was no longer in the centre of the city, but rather,

" The cemetery?" Dick said, puzzled. He came closer, resting on an arm on the back of Bruce's chair as they both gazed at the monitor. Dick knew that place, he'd visited every time he was in his father's city to remember the boy who died in a war not his own. Yes, Jason was alive again, but that didn't change that not so long ago, he wasn't. Dick still wanted with all his heart to remember the Robin who was taken from them, even if no one else did, Jason included.

There were cameras positioned to overlook Jason's grave, Bruce knew because he put them there after one afternoon some years ago, when he had found the earth over the burial to be severely disturbed and something he cursed himself for every waking hour, he never looked further into the matter. If he had, he may have known just hours before installing the security measures, Jason had crawled out of that very grave into a world consumed by rage and fear and confusion. He could have helped Jason then, could have found him, brought him home and cared for him.

Inwardly beating himself for his various failings, he accessed the cameras he had never taken down and gave them dark, grainy footage coming live from the cemetery. Yes, there was Jason, clear to see and dressed in his trademark red hoodie that Alfred got him for Christmas last year. By his posture, the position of his shoulders and the way he walked, Bruce could see just how great the level of his anger was. And justifiable anger at that, but Bruce had done what was best for him, no matter how blind to that Jason was.

" Um, Bruce?" Dick stretched his arm out and pointed to another figure on the edge of the camera's view, dressed in black to match the dark. Bruce hadn't seen him up until Dick pointed it out, but he knew who that was within a heartbeat that brought with it, a new surge of protectiveness. Gotham was one thing, Willis Todd was another, far worse one.

" Who is that?" Dick inquired, cocking his head. Were it not for the dark of night's paw, Dick would have been able to see the similarities between his brother and Willis, which may have lead to various conclusions.

" I don't know." Bruce lied because if they were being frank here, it wasn't his revelation to tell who that was. He would have zoomed in closer, if his youngest and eldest hadn't been spectating with him, a closer view could lead them to realise the face passed on from father to son.

" Well, we know where Jay is, let's go geddim." Dick announced, already on his way to the car despite his head injury when Bruce caught him by the arm, big hand enveloping the slender limb. Dick looked down at him, awaiting explanation he was not about to be presented with.

" No. Not yet." He released Dick and leaned in closer to the screen, lacing his fingers and resting his chin on them as he watched the conversation continue. He could tell both parties were growing agitated but took solace in the fact that Jason was bigger and stronger than his genetic donor, Willis couldn't hurt him if he tried. Well, not physically at least.

" What are we waiting for, B?" Dick persisted. " All of the rogues gallery is looking for Jason, we need to get him back before they find him.

Wholeheartedly, Bruce was of a like mind with him there, but he did nought to express it and observed Willis leave and Jason follow soon thereafter. Why? What the fuck was Jason doing? What hurricane of madness had swept him into its winds now?

When he could no longer see them, Bruce stood and pulled his cowl to cover his face on his way to the Batmobile. He could hear Damian and Dick fall into step with one another and begin to follow, but he put up a hand to stop them.

This was something he was about to handle father-to-father.

*

Jason followed his dad into the last place he expected to ever enter through with him again; his own childhood home. Involuntarily and hating himself for it, he shied against the wall when walking past Fischer's old door and noticed Willis send it a sideways glare, upper lip curling back a fraction to allow the flash of white teeth against the pitch dark hallway. Huh. So he did still remember the next door paedophile.

" What's wrong?" Eyes narrowed, Jason asked wryly because he wanted to hear Willis say it. Say that that was the house of the man who he left his son to _play_ with, unattended, unwatched, unstopped. He must've known what Fischer would do to Jason the second he could.

" Nothing." He grumbled and pushed his hands further into the depths of his pockets like they could hide the stain of his sins. There were just too. Damn. Many to conceal. Willis was a walking collection of mistakes and wrongs and Jason couldn't help but believe he knew it. Fucking good.

They stepped into what used to be both their home, Jason following after at a somewhat slower pace because he needed to pretend he didn't know every nook and cranny of this old dump. The word 'dump' being used because that was the literal definition of the mouldy apartment, falling to pieces. Not even the night could disguise how decrepit this place that had never seen long periods happiness was. Most items of furniture were destroyed, Jason had made sure of it time after time when he came here to take out his anger on defenceless bits of wood and plastic. He'd punched more holes in the walls than he had drawn breaths but it never helped ease those tight lashing of pain that secured him to the apartment next door.

Try as he might, Jason couldn't get away from Fischer any more than he could get away from nightmares about Joker and Sheila, who may be dead in body but inhabiting the empty spaces of his mind.

Throat constricting with those myriads of nightmarish memories, he hurried his walk and they came into the living room. There was computer equipment here, cables strewn out like cobwebs over the floor and leading to a laptop in the centre of the room, the screen open but black. Strange, he'd never known his dad to be a computer person but maybe he had adopted some new skills on top of his natural ability to abandon the unwanted product of fucking Sheila.

" Any particular reason you have a grudge against Wayne?" Willis asked when finally he stopped facing away, regarding Jason with scepticism he hadn't expressed in the graveyard. Jason knew he'd been brought to the seclusion of this abandoned apartment block so he could be throughoutly interrogated for that inside information he claimed to have. Which he definitely did, a shit tonne of it, but if Willis truly thought he was going to get to it, he was sadly mistaken. Jason had allowed for himself to come here because he was getting answers. Not Bruce. Not Willis. _Him_. Where the fuck has dad been? Why did he leave? Why is he back? Why does he suddenly care about that fate of his son? That one was the most pressing question because Jason sure as hell didn't want him to care. Not when it was impossible, but he had the gall to pretend his son was why he was picking Bruce apart.

" Yes." Jason tilted his chin up, but not enough to show his face from beneath his hood. " But my reasons are my own."

Willis snorted. " Sure. Wreck my son's grave but keep the reasons to yourself."

Jason clenched his fists, teeth under the enormous pressure of camping his jaws shut hard as a vice. Fucking bastard, going on about keeping reasons to one's self.

" Pray tell, why did your son die again?"

Willis' gaze attenuated to watch the man he didn't know was his son through slivers.

" You aren't just angry at Bruce Wayne, are you, kid?" He took a step closer that Jason almost punched him for. It took everything in him not to take one back the way five-year-old him would have as second nature.

Willis could sense there was more going on with this young man, he'd known it since meeting him at the graveyard, blowing Jason's grave to bits. He didn't buy the bullshit story that they both had their hatred in common when it concerned Wayne because obviously, there was more at play here. Maybe this person did really hate Wayne - couldn't really blame him if he did - but that wasn't all. He wouldn't show his face, wouldn't give his name, and kept on asking questions that shouldn't concern him.

Questions about Jason.

" No." The kid said, not lying for perhaps the first time. He tipped his chin up ever so slightly to allow the flash of animalistic anger in his blue/green eyes. Willis was momentarily captured by that display of wild colour, so familiar but there was something wrong here. Those weren't the kid's eyes, at least they shouldn't be. Other than the fury making them shades darker, they were exactly the same pallor as Jason's. Or was he hallucinating? 

" I'm pissed off at a lot of people." Jason couldn't hold in the suffocating torrents of emotion anymore; they were leaking out of every pore. He'd trapped all of this in him for all the years he never spoke about his parents, never expressed the severity of the pain they had caused him, the worst of that pain coming from being so unwanted, that he could be abandoned like a piece of trash on the sidewalk. And now all that, all those bits of pain, were rumbling like thunder in his chest, seconds from bursting. Face-to-face with his father...here.. it was more than his walls could take.

" Y'know..." Jason didn't realise his voice was little off from a guttural growl. " Jason didn't have to die. You could have saved him." 

'The hell are you talking about' is what Jason expected in place of,

" I know." Willis admitted, not sure why he was doing so to this clearly mentally unwell youngster. " I'm a shit parent, I didn't deserve him and still don't." Maybe he was talking to him because he did remind Willis of Jason to a degree. He was between twenty or twenty-two Willis guessed, right about the same age his son would be. Actually, Jason would be twenty-one next month. 

" Damn right." The kid had lowered his head again and Willis didn't miss the drop of liquid roll quickly down his cheek before he could wipe it away. Was he... Crying? No, that seemed as unlikely as it did out of place, but how else could he explain what he just saw?

" If you never abandoned him, he might not be dead. If you never left him...."

Willis frowned, beginning to realise there was more amiss here than he had originally thought. " H... how do you know I-?"

" What did you think was gonna happen to Jason once you were gone? I mean, what was worth leaving him with Fischer?"

" Who are you?" Willis demanded, slowly, calmly reaching behind his back for the cold metal handle of the gun the kid had forgotten by Jason's headstone. He'd known there was something wrong with this guy, but he knew things no one should about his family. The vibes pouring off him, his mannerism, was nothing short of threatening.

" What did you think was going to happen to him, Willis?" Jason pressed, salt stinging his eyes and emotions running rawer than a thirteen-year-old girl's, and he couldn't control them any longer. He was shaking with the sheer force of years of pent-up memories and traumas, his whole life's worth, and it all was careering into play right now. At the worst time, when he needed his mind to function rationally more than ever before, but it wouldn't let him think before his hand had grabbed his hood and yanked it off. And then he was staring at his father, face on full display along with the emotions that rocked him. 

He took a breath that shuddered. " What do you think was going to happen to _me_?"

Gun suddenly forgotten, Willis gave a startled, disbelieving gasp, his eyes blatantly lying to him about what they were seeing. God, he was hallucinating, wasn't he? This boy... this young man... he was the spitting image of those tabloid pictures of Wayne's wards, if a few years older. A spitting image of... Jason. And the things he knew.... fuck, it was impossible what he was thinking but here he was entertaining the thought.

" J.. _Jason_?"

Sniffing, Jason pushed a bitter-sweet smile to play on his lips while his eyes bled pain and anger. In that moment, he wanted the whole world to just fucking drop dead.

" Surprise, dad." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my little sister's on Ao3, too, goes by Anrim, the person this fic is gifted to, and she's got a really good two piece fic going about Helena Wayne, so if you could go check it out and give her some support, I know it would mean a lot to her.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for angst, feels, answers and more reasons to hate Sheila. We pick this up from the original flashback time zone.

  _Willis paced the less than spacious floor of his cell, running his fingers through his hair seemingly with each stride, then raking the hooked talons back along his scalp hard enough to leave bloody cuts. Every now and again, his cellie would glance at him from where he was reading some R-rated catalogue on his bunk, brows raised in query to his riled up state, perhaps thinking it was caused by him being new to prison. A fish as the lingo behind bars went. But no, Willis had been incarcerated a multitude of times up until five years ago, up until when he could no longer afford to be locked up._

 

_Every waking milli-second that he was away from Jason, not protecting him, was agony a thousand times worse than anything he had experienced before. It wasn't that he wasn't home, heck, that was the case most days,  but it was that thing Fischer did before he was dragged off._

_Willis had been outside his building, heading to meet with one of Sheila's guys about something nondisclosed, when a duo of cops appeared from the blue and slapped cuffs around his wrists without explanation of any sort._

_And Fischer, he had been there, probably just followed Willis out for god knows what reason. He'd been smirking, like he knew something no one else did. Then he ran that disgusting tongue of his along his lower lip like he was preparing for a feast._

_Had it not been for the incident the day before in the hall, when that sicko was getting too close to Jason, Willis would not have been as terrified by that sneer because he wasn't scared for his own sake, he was scared for what Fischer would do now that no one was there to stop him. Well, there was Catherine and Willis was hoping and praying that she let go of her grudges long enough to protect Jason while he wasn't there._

_Somehow, Willis doubted she could._

_Fuck, he didn't even know what his charges were. He just knew he was rotting in this holding cell while that pedo could have his hands all over Jason._

_Drawing a quivering breath he could hold still at the notion, Willis let out a bark of frustration and slammed both his hands against the cast iron bars of the cell door, leaving his palms stinging as he wrapped his fingers around the cold metal of the only thing that kept him separated from his child. Well, these and some bogus charges no one would do him the courtesy of naming._

_He yanked at the grating, pushed, shook it, the foreseeable futility of his attempts causing nothing but the loud banging of the hinges against the concrete walls._

_He needed to get back to Jason before Fischer did something irreversible to him. He needed to get there now._

_When the bars unsurprisingly remained standing as firm barriers, Willis commenced pacing back and forth while his hands laid waste to numerous strands of his hair. Without his sayso, his brain was forming vivid imagery of that disgusting sicko alone with his son, alone and unstopped. That guy had no moral compass and wouldn't draw the line at Jason's menial five years alive. He'd just see it as easier easy game._

_With an animalistic growl, Willis slammed his fist into the solid wall, the impulse proving to be an ill-thought-out one as pain exploded upon impact, spiking through his knuckles and the now raw flesh covering them. The was a small stain of blood on the concrete, tiny droplets mattered into the rough surface and the aching caused by that couldn't distract him for a second._

_The damn guards had long since stopped paying attention to him and didn't care if he tried telling them about Jason being alone with Fischer. In Gotham, few people would care even if they believed him about it. It was just one sick element in many in this disease-ridden city._

_Dammit, Fischer, he thought angrily to himself, his inner voice as dark as the day was long. Touch my son and I'll-_

_Click, click, click...._

_What the hell? That sound, that god-awfully familiar sharp tapping of heels against the stone floor reverberated through his skull, originating outside of the cell. He was having a sudden hard time of putting together what his brain was telling him, even after the soft waft of honeysuckle filled his nostrils and she popped into view, followed by a cop holding a bunch of jingling keys._

_For all his life, Willis couldn't begin to imagine why Sheila was here._

_" Sh - Sheila?" He uttered, confused beyond his wits. Jason's mother hadn't been in the city since his birth, to Willis knowledge and now she was here? The timing was fishy at best and his heart was sinking when he realised this was worse than he bargained._

_" Hello, doll," Sheila smiled, not a genuine smile but one that revealed the nature of her sinister intentions, her purpose of being here yet to be learned. She reached through the bars and brushed the pads of her fingers down his cheek but before the touch could go further, he stepped away, glaring at her._

_" Why the hell are you here? What have you done, Sheila?" This was something to do with her, he would swear it was._

_" Calm down, Willis." Sheila said, tipping her head and raking those big blue eyes across him in examination. The way Sheila loved to do with people, she was toying with him._

_" You've looked better." She finally remarked when she returned her gaze to meet his, but she was still visually picking him apart.  It unnerved him but he could brush it aside._

_" What is this, Sheila?" Willis wrapped his hands around the bars again, giving them a firm yank. The closed distance between them did nothing to deter her, she stayed standing where she was with overbearing confidence transferring to arrogance._

_" I've come to call for another favour."_

_" What?"_

_" I'll tell you the details later, honey. Owen?" Sheila turned her attention away from a puzzled Willis to the guard who had escorted her here, who was already jiggling a key into the lock holding the door fast. He swung it open and Willis had to jump back so as not to be hit by it._

_" Sheila? What's going on?" Willis demanded when the guard stepped into the cell with a pair of handcuffs. He grabbed Willis' arms and twisted them behind his back, the familiar cold metal feel soon sliding around his wrists and fastening while Jason's bitch mom watched by, one corner of her pale pink lips tugged upward._

_" Sheila?" Owen yanked him up straight and dragged him out of the cell, the door banging shut loudly behind. Sheila followed, falling into step with him. Willis sent her an angry side-glare, not yet versed in on what she was doing but already aware it was bad for him and his family._

_God-fucking-dammit_.

*

" Y - you're dead, Jason." Willis struggled to say, feeling out of breath and delusional. It was impossible that Jason was here and he didn't know what this was that he was seeing.

Jason's look-alike jerked his head up in retortion. " So are you." The glimpse of his eyes that the movement allowed revealed anger, whirlpools of dark masses moving amidst the turquoise, but also something else, far stronger and vaster; pain. Raw pain.

This kid was an identical representation of what Willis had imagined Jason would grow up to look like, say for some minor things like the excessive scars and white stripe of hair. He was also big, far bigger than Jason's premature birth should have abled him to be.

There was no logical way this could be true.... This couldn't be Jason.

But Willis wanted it to be him with all his heart and soul.

" H - how?"

" That is a very long story, dad." 'Jason' said and Willis believed him. This scenario must indeed come with a very lengthy explanation attached. Jason's, if Willis could even call him that, voice was very bittersweet, oozing untold amounts of the two things expressing in his eyes. Everything about him screamed Jason, from the looks and age, the things he knew, right down to his reactions, except Jason died five years ago.

" Why have you come back to Gotham?" Jason demanded.

" I needed to find my son." Willis told him as calmly as he could keep himself, but that was only so-so.

Jason snorted, disbelieving. " Yeah right. You and I both know I ain't worth shit to you. What's the real reason, _dad_?"

" What? Jason-" Willis tried taking a step towards him, touch him to see if he was real or would his fingers just pass through, but Jason wasn't having that. At the first half inch of movement from him, Jason whipped out another 9 mm from the conceals of his hoody and trained it on Willis with a click of the hammer being pulled back. Willis noted how natural the weapon seemed to Jason, like an extension of his arm.

" Don't come near me." Jason hissed, tongue laden heavy with the unspoken promise of threat.

Willis raised his hands, palms facing Jason who was looking more and more like the cornered animal, despite being the one wielding the firearm.

" Jason," he said softly, " if that's really you, please, listen to me, I didn't come back to Gotham to hurt you." While he tried to make sure Jason knew that, he carefully tugged the gun out from behind his back and lowered himself enough to place it on the ground, all the while Jason tracked his movement with the barrel of his 9mm. Willis kicked the weapon across the floor to Jason's feet, where it was within his reach and power, extra protection if he felt he needed it. However, Willis got the idea from this picture that the gun aimed at him was there to ward off the world and not just him.

" Like you could hurt me."

" Jason, I know you're angry and confused right now-"

" You don't know what I am!" Jason snapped, voice cracking and a fresh, more violent batch of tears pricking his eyes. His hand tightened around the handle of the gun until something cracked and he drew a whimpery breath, sounding distressed.

" Y - y - you don't know..." He repeated with a whole lot less sense but it was clear to see how confused he was, a new element to add to his storm of rampant emotions.

Yes, Willis could see it now, his little boy, hiding scared, lost, beneath the darkness wrapped around Jason, somehow alive.

" You're right." Willis said when he felt like he could again talk. " I don't know what you do now, I don't know who you are in this life, except that you're my son,"

" ..No-"

"-I love you."

" No. No, don't say that." Jason ordered him on the tail end of a shudder. He was on the verge, minutes, seconds from a breakdown. Diffusing a situation, not an area Willis had a whole lot of experience in but he didn't care, it wasn't an important factor right now. What was important and standing tall above all else, was bringing down Jason's riled up nature before he did what his father feared and somehow hurt himself. If Jason was anything like his old man in this day and age, it meant that excessive emotions would make him irrational and irrational meant a whole world of other things for an emotionally unstable gun-wielder.

" You're fucking lying to me, _again_."

" What did I lie to you about last time?"

" Th-" Jason paused to sniff, "-that you were... Coming back." He whispered the last but seemed to chide himself for the show of vulnerability immediately. His gun arm, that had begun to slack, tensed up, as did his whole body.

" I'm so sorry, Jason." Willis said, equally quiet to what Jason had been just now. " I tried to get back. I really did."

" Pff. You make it sound like you had no choice in the matter." 

" I'll explain it to you, Jason. All of it. But first," Willis took a step towards him, hands still raised. Jason raised the gun further, giving himself a perfect aim between the eyes if he so chose to take it.

" You need to calm down. You're going to hurt someone."

" You're just worried I'll put a bullet in your head."

" No. You have every right to do that. I don't want you to do something that gets _you_ hurt."

Jason narrowed his eyes, involuntarily causing heavy beads to overflow from his eyes and roll down his cheeks, leaving his lashes wet and dripping. " You think I'd _regret_ shooting you? After you left me with Fischer? Do you even know the half of what he did to me?"

" Wh - what?" Willis' brows rose and horror took his heart by force when the realisation struck with a mammoth's weight. The realisation that Sheila never kept her promise. After all these years, she lied.

*

_" You're going down for these charges, Willis. As it happens, the good people down at the GCPD finally found some evidence for Dante's gone-cold murder  investigation." Sheila explained through her cat-like smile, leaning forward. It was just the two of them, meeting in a conjugal room of all places, Sheila sitting on the edge of the bed like she owned the place while Willis stood as far from her as he could, as the sight of her disgusted him unendingly._

_" Sheila, I kept up my end of the bargain. I've been managing your shit here in Gotham for five years on the one condition that no one finds out about Dante. How the fuck did this happen?"_

_Sheila leaned further forward, resting her elbows on her knees and giving him a decent, deliberate view of her ample boobs peeking through her boldly descending V-neck. Willis kept his eyes fixed on hers, never once straying beneath the neckline. He learned a hard lesson about wandering eyes a long time ago._

_" I had a word with some friends down at the GCPD as well as the warden at Blackgate, and they found me to be quite persuasive." Her smile deepened with the implication and Willis rolled his eyes inwardly. How exactly like her to whore herself out for her end goals. And she said she was no slut._

_" I gave them some key pieces of evidence concerning Mr Murs' murder a few years back and since most of them were on his payroll, they took it quite personally."_

_" What? You did what, Sheila?" He realised just how bad this was but now why she was doing this now. " Why the hell?"_

_" Because, hon, it recently came to light that there's something you can do for me, that serves to benefit me a world more than just managing my operations here in this filthy city."_

_" I'm done cutting deals with you, you bitch."_

_Sheila chewed her lip but kept up the pretence of a smile through the insult, enlacing her fingers before her. " Think about it this way, if you don't agree to what I'm about to propose, you'll go down for killing Dante and shivved to death by one of many faithful members of his gang who are now serving prison time. And with you dead, I'll have no reason to tell Fisch not to lay hands on our precious baby."_

_Willis' heart dropped when his son was brought into this. Fisch? As in Fischer?! That new neighbour who moved in a few weeks ago and had taken a disturbing interest in Jason? It couldn't be the same person, Sheila couldn't have anything to do with that, but at the same time, who else could she mean?_

_Seeing his confusion, Sheila explained somewhat,_

_" Fischer and I have known each other for some time. In exchange for a few things - this included -  I made his molestation charges go away after a talk with the judge." Yes, of course she did, as it was turning out Sheila could make most things go away in exchange for a favour. She might actually be the devil incarnate._

_" You do what I want, and Jason will be fine. If not, you'll be offed in prison and Fischer can do whatever he wants."_

_Willis took a moment to comprehend that she was actually saying this. Threatening their five-year-old son for her own agenda. In the past he'd thought she could get no shittier, but this was taking it a thousand miles lower to lows he hadn't  known existed._

_" Are you fucking hearing yourself right now?!" Willis exclaimed, jerking his arms apart as far as they could go before the cold steels of the cuffs yanked back harder, severely bruising his flesh but the sudden flare of pain went unregistered._

_" Jason is our child, Sheila! You can't do this."_

_" Your child. I never wanted that rat so if he can finally be of use to me, then good." While she spoke, Willis was certain he could see the devil glinting behind the blue of her eyes, hiding a mouthful of needle-like teeth behind her perfect pouty lips._

_" Sheila, please," she had set the terms and Willis knew there was nothing he could do now but plead, " he's only five." He sounded so desperate and needy, an invisible noose tightening around his neck and he was really feeling those first two things. His son, alone with that monster who was free to do as he pleased unless Willis did whatever the fuck this bitch witch wanted now._

_But she didn't care how old their son - her son was, that much was evident on her unchanging features. She straightened her back and unfolded her legs, rising off the edge of the bed that had served as her perch. He wanted to choke her until her goddamn eyes popped out of their sockets._

_" It's a very simple thing I need from you and then we're done. No more deals and we both walk away free, and what probably matters most to you, I make sure Fischer keeps his hands off our little lovemuffin, sound good?"_

_No. It really did not. It sounded awful but Willis wasn't willing to let that other alternative happen to Jason. Sheila was ruthless and uncaring to the point where if he didn't do what she wanted to the letter a second time, she would take it out on Jason in the most inhumane of ways. He still couldn't believe what she was threatening him with and made a vow to rip hers and Fischer's goddamn throats out once this was all over and done with._

_But backed into the corner, he had to agree_.

*

" Fischer _hurt_ you, Jason?" Willis whispered, repulsion and horror forming a heavy ballast in the pit of his stomach, weighing so much it threatened to tear his insides up. All this time, he thought he had at least been able to save his son that one nightmarish fate. But Sheila had lied. God fucking dammit, why had he believed her?!

" Oh yeah," Jason nodded, forcing a smile that was threatening to break his face with the falsity of it. His hand, the one holding the gun, was trembling, palm growing sweaty in what was the first time he ever struggled holding a firearm to someone. He wasn't good with emotions, couldn't control them, and they were taking him for a hurricane of a ride down memory lanes he'd boarded and bricked up.

" I gave my first blowjob before I had my goddamn milk teeth out. Nice old Mr Fischer fucked me time and time and time again, until he got tired of me. Said I was too old. I was fucking eight." Jason's voice cracked and he swallowed heavily, throat bobbing as he did. He looked like a delicate porcelain doll, the cracks and hairline breaks in him threatening to bring the whole structure down.

" Y'know what happened then, dad? Huh?" Jason continued, going off the rails in his teary rant and Willis wanted only to grab him and hold him, keep him together somehow in his arms and blow the rest of this fucking world straight to hell. All this time, the only thing that had kept him somewhat afloat was thinking Jason had been safe from Fischer and Sheila and this truth made his wish Jason would fill his skull with a pound of lead for the good for nothing father he was.

 A parent had one duty, that stands above the rest: protect their child and he'd fucked that up in such a colossal way being shot was too much of a mercy... but he couldn't abandon Jason a second time.

" Mom's dealers started whoring me out to pay for her drugs! You'd be surprised how many of Gotham's elite sick fucking jackass billionaires love to have a four-foot tall fuck hole to suck them off." 

Oh good _fucking_ god, Willis' heart had kicked into overdrive with these gruelling retellings and was threatening to burst into shreds. He wanted to blow all of Gotham up for the things it had done to his son, make sure none of those rich bastards saw the next sunrise but that would have to wait. Looking at Jason, he was a state, shaking, tearing up, his breathing uneven and going from fast to slow intermittently. He needed someone to bring him down from his emotional high right now or he was going to get himself hurt worse than he already was, if that was somehow possible.

" Jason," Willis said gently, his own gaze beginning to blur and dampen with all the horrors and nightmares Jason described and he had a feeling that those were only a few of them. 

" I am so, so fucking sorry I wasn't there to protect you. I tried, god knows, I tried and there's no excuse for me fucking it up. Shoot me if you want, you're justified if you do," as he spoke, he was taking slow steps towards Jason, who didn't try stopping him but kept the gun raised, eyes narrowing more than they ever were.

" But please know that I never meant to hurt you. I tried to do everything I could for you, keep you safe and I failed massively, but that doesn't mean I don't care about you." He took that last step that closed them in and had the muzzle of the gun jabbing him directly in the larynx, not allowing him to so much as swallow against the cold hard press of it. Jason eased the trigger back somewhat, clearly trying to choose between firing and hearing him out.

" It's more than just me caring about you," Willis rested his hand over Jason's on the gun, locking contact with his eyes, Jason's visibly cracking under the pressure of too many traumas in such few years.

Then finally Willis said finally said it, those three words Jason had refused to believe for almost two decades.

" I _love_ you. So much. You're the only thing left in this goddamn world that I care about and no amount of apologies can ever make up for what you had to go through because of me. Shoot me if it will make up for it even a little." Willis raised Jason's aim from his throat to his forehead. 

" But don't ever think I don't love you."

With that, like water from a broken dam Jason collapsed in on himself with a shuddery sob, dropping the gun that hit the ground with a clatter seeming like the loudest sound in the world. 

" Goddammit, dad." Jason snuffled, arms falling limply to his sides as heavily as if they weighed a tonne. He squeezed his eyes shut against the storm of haywire emotions and that left stars to glitter brightly against his black lashes. The faultlessly tight tension between them broken, all that was left was a deafening ringing with not origin and the sounds of Jason trying not to break down and cry. That wasn't going so well.

" I don't want t - to believe you." Jason croaked, his words filled with cracks and strain that hurt his throat, made it feel like sandpaper. He hated himself for crying again, hated Willis for making him cry with this sickly lovey-dovey bull crap. He didn't want to feel this way.

" I don't want you to be alive." Jason continued, gaze hopelessly travelling to many locations without an idea of where to land. Sighing beneath his breath, Willis reached his arms around Jason with a whimper from him and held him tight like he was five years old again. Jason let himself be touched, a rarity, but was weakened by an onslaught of things he didn't know how to deal with; his legs buckled and Willis eased the both of them to the floor as best he could, hugging Jason to himself tighter, so tight he may be hurting both of them. He had half pulled Jason off the ground and  into his lap.

" I - I fucking hate you, dad." Tears blurring everything, Jason mumbled that into his chest, yearning to both punch him and hug him both at once but he felt depleted of any strength to do so.

" I know, Jason." Willis began carding his fingers through his son's varicoloured hair, mixing white strands in with the black. There was something here that he never thought he'd feel again; Jason's heartbeat against his skin. Willis couldn't even begin to grasp how it was possible Jason was back from the dead, all that mattered was that he was here, alive, breathing.

Sucking in a quivering breath of his own, Willis rested his head on Jason's, slow streams of tears slowly descending down his cheeks to dampen his son's hair and he shifted his arms, half expecting them to fade through Jason because he couldn't be real. He was dead. There had been pictures to prove it yet here he was, alive again for his father's to hold. Willis knew with the sickening reality that he had no idea what had transpired with Jason, what brought about his miraculous resurrection, and he couldn't take back what Sheila and Fischer did, nor could anything, he would never forgive himself for any of it, but he had his child back.

 

The night rolled on without word, countless seconds ticking by into a crush of minutes of an indiscernible quantity until Jason finally gathered himself enough to say,

" Why did you leave? Why is Sheila involved? I want to know everything."

Willis looked down at him, unsure he could take the full weight of the truth. Sheila, Fischer, Dante, all of it.

" You sure you want to know?"

Jason straightened with a final sniff, wiping his bloodshot eyes with his sleeve of his hoody and breaking the embrace they'd shared. He pushed himself back and sat on his folded legs, losing the warmth his father's body had provided him. He hated to be cold and ruffled his hoody around himself, the loose folds of the garment falling around his frame ungracefully.

" No." He blinked with heavily lined lids. " But I have to."

Willis sighed. He had wanted to spare Jason at least this, even when knowing he couldn't. At some point, the truth always reared its sometimes ugly head to the surface world.

Willis began where all this did, with Dante's murder at the clinic, deliberately  leaving out Sheila's plans to abort their baby because that Jason did not need to know. To the first side of the lengthy story, Jason responded as well as expectation would have foreseen, taking it all in quietly as he slowly processed his father killing the leader of the Red Hoods and Sheila blackmailing him for it.

When it came to the second half, however, particularly Fischer's involvement with Sheila, was when Jason absorbed it with less ease, disbelieving she could be behind that too.

" Oh my god." Jason groaned, burying his head in the hook fingered cradle of his hands, digging his fingernails into his scalp. He could feel the first layers of skin beginning to part. 

" She did that too?"

Willis nodded solemnly. " Yes. I'm so sorry, son. I tried stopping her. I did everything I could-"

" It's okay, dad." Jason told him when they both knew that wasn't the case. It hurt like a motherfucking bitch that on top of trading his life for drugs five years ago, Sheila was also there fifteen ago to ask her paedophile friend to please _rape_ him if his father didn't cooperate. And it sounded like either Sheila had lied or Fischer hadn't listened because he distinctly remembered getting his wrists pinned above his head and being fucked by the good neighbour countless times.

Willis watched him sadly, wishing he could entrap those hideous memories swirling about Jason's head and burn them to ashes. Or at least help ease the pain somehow.

" What did she want from you?" Jason asked when he could again speak, blinking back his mind-numbing internal agony while he asked himself what the hell he ever did to his mother to make her hate him to this extent. What did he do? Exist? News flash for Sheila, Jason never asked  to be given life. He never asked for any of this.

" That's a whole other story onto itself, but I'll try to summarize it. You know I used to sell drugs for Two-Face?" Among do other things.

" Yeah."

" A little before you were conceived," Jason pulled a face, " Two-Face's goons were working on a new drug, the next big thing they called it. It was called grave dust."

" Cute."

" And it was highly addictive, causing massive highs for a few hours, but the side effects were fatal. Muscle spasms followed by vomiting, and there was something in the GD that tampered with the body's ability to regulate temperature. Really fucked that shit up. Consumers died of severe, untreatable hypothermia."

" I've never heard of that drug."

" Not surprising, it never hit the streets as big as Two-Face wanted it. The guys working on it, I was friends with some of 'em and watched them make it once or twice, before anyone knew the side effects. One evening, the dumb twats were so confident it was ready that they tested it on 'emselves. I wasn't there at the time."

" Where were you?"

" Making you."

Jason pulled another face, regretting he ever asked. That was something he did not want to dwell on if he could help it.

" When I came in the morning after, they were all dead, frozen to death from the inside out." Willis paused to take a breath in the midst of covering years worth of explanation, his mind replaying  a quick image of the gory scene.

" Sheila found out that I watched them make it somehow, when you was five. She was running a drug trade in Ethiopia and wanted to sell grave dust to wipe out her competition with rivalling dealers. She thought I knew how to make it."

" Did you?"

" Hell no. I'm a car thief/drug dealer, not a pharmacist, but I thought I was protecting you from Fischer and your bitch mom when I went along with it."

Recalling how that backfired, Jason lowered his eyes and Willis couldn't help the massive nagging of guilt. He reached out and put his hand over Jason's oddly cold one, adding some pressure there and soon, Jason nodded for him to continue.

" She went to Ethiopia and dragged me along for the ride. Turns out, that used to be her drug base of operations and she had quite the trafficking ring going."

Jason nodded quietly, mind suddenly on a far-off gander. " I know that."

Willis didn't question how. Jason had probably done his research on his parents after they each in turn systematically dropped out of his life and then existence.

" I was the only person left alive who saw the GD  being made, if anyone had an idea on how to make it, it was me. But the formula is extremely complex and as you well know, I'm no expert when it comes to making drugs, I only dish 'em out. I remembered bits of the recipe, though, epinephrine, spliced coke from Brazil, things like that. But believe me when I say, grave dust is not simple to create or everyone would be doing it."

" Why? If it's so dangerous.....?"

" Jason," Willis sighed, " you've probably gotten this idea by now, but Sheila doesn't care if what she does risks human life. She moved to Ethiopia, a developing country where no one gives a shit, specifically so she can conduct her illegal activities and no one will do a thing. But for the most part, she was selling it to mob-bosses as a drug to be used in torture. That aside, the highs of GD are incredible,"

Jason raised a brow at the tone of experience coming from the way his father said that.

" In very small doses it's not fatal." Willis quickly added, neither confirming nor denying whether or not he'd actually done grave dust. He went on with the story before Jason could raise further question. " The locals of Ethiopia would go nuts for GD, or so your mother envisioned."

Jason winced at the word 'mother' as if it were toxic. It may as well have been as it sat heavy like a stone in his stomach.

" Please don't call her that."

" Right. Sorry." And Willis genuinely was, regretting that his son had to bear 50% of that bitch's DNA and genetically call her his mother. Regardless, he went on because for years now, he'd wanted to tell Jason everything and never thought he'd get the chance.

" But I couldn't give her the complete formula, so she spent a long, long time tracking down presumptions ingredients, convinced it would pay off twentyfold. If done right, GD can be worth more than gold."

" That's it? You just stuck around Ethiopia after that?"

" No. I wanted to leave, I tried getting back to you so many times, but I never got far and there were.... consequences. Eventually, I stopped trying to get away and put all my attention towards getting those damn ingredients so I could someday return to Gotham. Believe me when I say, Jason, I honestly thought I was doing what's best for you." He lowered his sights to a crack in the wood of the dusty floor they were sitting on. " Shoulda known I'd fuck that up too."

Jason studied him and could tell how genuine he was about feeling the sense of failure, regret, guilt, all those things he never expected to see on his father's face. This didn't take away everything that had happened to him, but it helped ease the heavy lead lining encasing his heart to know Willis had tried harder than most would to do what was best for his kid. He hadn't walked out on Jason despite what he had convinced himself. It made him feel.... something.

" You did the best you could, dad." Words he never thought he would say to a person never thought he would again see.

" Thanks, Jay. That's not true, but thanks." Dissociating briefly, Willis cleared his throat after a spell, straightening his back with a string of cracks for his vertebrae. 

" Anyway, the day came that I managed to scrounge up something closely resembling GD and the shipment was on its way to Sheila's main HQ when of all things, the goddamn Joker hijacked it."

Jason stiffened, this part of the story one he himself thought sounded familiar. It couldn't be, could it....?

" I don't know what happened next, but the next thing I know is that Sheila is dead."

Oh yes, it was. Dammit. So it had been grave dust that Sheila had traded her son's life for? The very drug that Willis had been trying in vain to recreate for years to keep Jason safe was ultimately the reason he died in that fiery inferno from hell. Did Willis know that? He knew Jason had been killed in Ethiopia around the same time, but did he know the gruesome details? If not, Jason couldn't bring himself to tell him just yet as they would certainly tear him apart. It was a miracle Willis hadn't already done something extremely irreversible with all the guilt and wrongdoings he was hauling around with him. 

" After that, I tried to find you, Jason, but at the time I couldn't get back to Gotham and got some very outdated info from a source of mine that you were doing really well, that you were in school and some rich bloke with a history of adopting and caring for orphans had taken you in. It sounded like a life you deserved and I didn't wanna fuck it up by reappearing, so I figured I'd just stay away from you."

" And leave me thinking you abandoned me?"

Willis shrugged, shoulders heavy, clearly at a mute point here. He hadn't thought it out as well as he may have believed in the past, despite trying to put Jason's needs above his own as always, even when some methods used were questionable at best. He hadn't been a good dad in the very least, but he had done everything he could for his son.

" I stayed as far away from here as I could 'cause I knew if I saw you, I'd wanna take you back and never let you go again. And you didn't need a druggie dad when you were doing so well. You didn't need _me_." That part was harder to say, true or false as it may be. 

Jason stared intently at the ground as he took this all in, processors working in overdrive to filter through what in the least amount of words, was a _lot_. Sheila, Fischer, his dad, all of this was overwhelming him and he knew later it would cause some kind of an outbursted reaction, but right now he was struggling to comprehend the half of it.

" I always needed you, dad." Jason finally broke the silence, taking his father's gaze in his own once more. "I still need you."

Willis smiled a bit, a broken and pained, sad expression with a lifetime of regrets behind it but a smile nonetheless. 

" You're a good kid, Jason." He said and this time, it was Jason who extended his arms and enlaced him in them. And Willis still couldn't understand how his son had gotten so goddamn muscular. His size didn't make any sense, it was as if someone had dunked him in a magic tub of steroids or something.

They stayed there a while but upon pulling away, Jason asked the last pressing thing on his mind.

" Why did you come back now?"

Willis sighed, tired by the sound of it and that was no surprise. The night had been a lengthy one at best but he needed to get this all out in the open.

" I heard from somebody that an old member of the Red Hood gang or something like that, had found out about what really happened with Dante and because of that, was looking for Jason Todd."

Jason scrunched up his brow, jabbing himself in the chest with his finger. " Me?"

" If that's still the name you go by, then yes. I was thought to be dead, Sheila and Catherine are dead and I guess that left only you for revenge or shit like that. You're not paying for my mistakes again, I decided I'd been hiding for long enough at that point and that I needed to get back to Gotham to find you before anyone else did. I didn't know you were.... dead."

Jason nodded. Bruce had pretty much covered the whole thing up, say for the odd newspapers article years ago. The death of Wayne's ward wasn't a very spoken of thing so it was no big surprise that Willis hadn't known. He'd probably kept tabs on Jason what little he could, but Jason in his childhood had made a point of staying out of the limelight so as not to give tabloids much to write about. That's what he told Bruce anyway, the excuse he gave when in reality, a lot of Jason's former clients were Bruce's peers, people he knew and was friends with. Jason hadn't wanted for anyone to recognise him but more than that, he hadn't wanted to fuck up Bruce's relationships. Bruce still didn't know some of those people he to this day went to business lunches with were perverted pedos who loved to have a small kid to screw.

" Then I came here, found out that you had apparently died." Willis' gaze quickly traced him up and down, noting how very _not_ dead he was. That he could not understand. " And dropped everything I was doing to gut the person who murdered you. I thought I could at least do something for you."

" Okay." Jason nodded again. " Okay. My death and resurrection are both very, very long stories that I don't think we have time for tonight, but you gotta know, dad, Bruce Wayne didn't kill me. He's an asshole from time to time, yes, definitely, but he didn't hurt me."

" He didn't?" That was hard to believe and had it not come from Jason himself, he wouldn't have. "Then who the fuck did?" Along with that, Willis was barely containing the bout of questions involving how on earth it was that Jason was alive again? Why did the world peg him for dead? And everything that went along with those, but it didn't seem like something Jason wanted to get into at this moment, understandable given all he'd just been told. 

" Another long story we can get into at another time. This person from the Red Hood gang, how do you know they're looking for me?" How indeed, as Jason distinctly recalled there being a hit out on Red Hood right now and not him. It was highly unlikely that there were two different people gunning for him at once which meant this was personal. Some people like Roman Sionis and the Joker himself knew what his identity was but this wasn't either of them. If this person knew Jason was Red Hood, then that could explain a whole lot. Now he had something he could work with involving this hit.

" I had a friend who was recently in Gotham, working for Black Mask, and someone there let it slip that there was a bounty on you. He remembered you were my son and gave me a heads up. That motivated me to stop fucking hiding and finally come find you. I'm.... sorry it took such a goddamn while."

" It's okay, dad." Jason said a bit absently, brushing that last part off as he thought. It made sense if a lieutenant of Mask's had let it slip that Jason Todd was the identity of the Hood, possible when he was drunk, but from what he could tell, his dad didn't know his alter ego and with his history with the Red Hood gang, for now, that was better.

Recap, a retired member of a gang he thought he had put to rest wanted to take revenge on him for what his father did to their leader. The henchman and boss must've been very close for this kinda reaction as well as somehow figured out that Jason now wore the mantra of the former feared gang. He didn't yet know how they had done that and this, needless to say, was bad.

" Dad," Jason said, breaking out of his enforced pattern of brainwave activity because this moment was one he wanted to concentrate on, to escape the reality of his vigilante existence for only a few seconds, if that was all he could have. It was bliss no matter how short it may be.

" Yes, Jason?"

" Thanks for coming back. I missed you."


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you go ahead and read, take a sec to remember the over 2K people killed when the twin towers came down, seventeen years ago today.

How odd. The tracker was beeping at the sight of a location Bruce didn't expect Jason to ever go to: his childhood home. The building itself, decrepit and crumbling though it may be, was still standing less than a mile from the old graveyard. It wasn't a question whether or not Jason could have walked from there to here in the time it took Bruce to arrive. He would have been here a world faster if Joker's shenanigans downtown with a grenade launcher didn't demand his immediate attention, but that was quickly taken care of and Jason could defend himself, especially from someone smaller than him like his biological father. Bruce didn't feel too badly about the wasted time knowing that.

Silent as the dark of night he was named for, Bruce slunk from roof top to roof top until he had a good visual on Jason, who was beside a broken window, watching him from the roof of the opposing apartment block, separated by nothing but a thin deteriorating wall and a ten foot alley gap. He couldn't begin to imagine what had happened between Jason and Willis before he got here, some wild display of angst-ridden drama transpired without a doubt, but how the hell did it end with the both of them sitting on the floor?  Holding a conversation steering unexpectedly close to civil no less?  From this angle, Bruce couldn't see Willis' face but he appeared to be doing the majority of the talking. Jason, however, well his expressions were on complete show, revealing an abundance of emotions Bruce hadn't known Jason had. Sadness, that was evident on his face. Pain, Jason had his head in his hands, slumped over, for a duration so long Bruce had to grapple with himself to not go over there and see what was wrong with him. When he was again sitting straight, vulnerability glistening wetly in his eyes, Jason kept fidgeting with his hands, rubbing his palms together like he was hoping for three wishes from the damn things.

At one jaw-dropping instance in this.... this thing resembling an explanatory conversation, Jason hugged - _hugged_ \- his father. Jason hated physical contact with another living being, he couldn't stomach as little as a hand on his shoulder, and god be with you if you tried hugging him. His intense hatred towards hands on him spawned from a  number of reasons. So why. The fuck. Did Jason just go and initiate an embrace? If he hadn't seen it, Bruce would have an easier time believing the Joker saw the error of his ways and reformed to society.   

In all the years Bruce had known Jason - seven and a half, a total of nearly three longer than Willis - Jason had never attempted anything like these things he was now doing with Willis so naturally. Talking face-to-face with no fists being thrown, expressing emotions he kept under lock and key, not captive to the impressions he wanted to maintain. There wasn't actually anything Willis could have done that _forced_ Jason to act so differently to what Bruce knew, although some self-indulgent part of him may have preferred that reality. 

That man _abandoned_ Jason. He left him alone and fending for himself just barely in a city as dangerous as Gotham. And Jason could overlook all that and as it appeared, forgive his father? Flashes of his son despising him for far less than anything Willis had done zipped through Bruce's mind, leaving him seriously questioning why Jason was so willing to let everything go concerning Willis, who was only his biological father, not the one who actually took care of him and loved him. That title belonged to Bruce. 

Wordless, not many thoughts other than those listed going through his head, Bruce commenced spying on the two in utter silence disrupted only by the barely noticeable sounds of cars passing below, easily pushed into the irrelevancy of background buzz.

They continued talking and Willis said something that made a faint smile flit across Jason's lips. It looked completely out of place.

After his resurrection, Bruce had never gotten a smile out of his son that was outside of the sarcastic nature.

 

" How are you alive again, Jason?" Willis asked, sounding the question gently and grateful that he did because the second it came out, Jason looked away. This was a topic Jason had been purposefully avoiding all night, be it for one reason or another. He could try to hide it, but that was still Willis' son, and he could see the flickers of displeasure the memory of whatever miraculous resurrection had occurred brought with it. Seeing the pictures of the aftermath of his death, how agonising leaving this world had been for Jason, Willis had no difficulty believing re-entering it had been none the less painful. 

Jason kept his gaze downcast, studying the fine yet plentiful specs of dust lining the floorboarding, the shifting of his pupils betraying his adamant though futile search for the words to explain. No parent, shit as they may be like himself, liked making their kid feel cornered when it concerned something this touchy and much as Willis needed to know what happened, he could wait until Jason had had the time he needed to process everything he had already learned tonight. One big thing at a time. Resurrection and killers were a topic for another day.

" I - ugh, dammit. There was-" Jason was really struggling with an explanation, like he needed to fabricate half of it to hide something. His son had secrets, every bit of him enveloped in them and Willis wanted to take the time he now had to learn each one that made up this young man Jason had become.

" Jason," Willis disrupted Jason's stammering spree with the calm in his voice, calm never one to be associated with him but he had hope he could be more grounded for his son this second time around. What's a second chance if you waste it?

" If you can't talk about it now, you don't have to."

Relieved if somewhat distraught, Jason exhaled half a sigh. " Thanks... dad. It's just - just a hell of a story. Too much for tonight, y'know?"

" I understand." Willis nodded, secretly overjoyed by the small yet huge matter of Jason calling him 'dad', that title he did _not_ deserve. Between them, there was a trace amount of the trust that beautiful, perfect, tiny creature in the oxygen tank holding his finger two decades ago had expressed, like a shiny vein of silver peeking from beneath the dirt. The airspace wasn't cleared by any means, nor would they be for a considerable time when there were still so many unspoken wrongs and the pain that came with them, but for now, they were at peace with what was here. 

A few more minutes went by, ticking to the silent sound of a long dead clock mounted on the wall, right next to a humongous rip in the mouldy wallpaper.

"..... Jason?" 

" Mmh?" 

" I wanna ask you something, it's not to do with your reanimation but you still don't have to answer. If you don't want to talk about this, tell me, one word, and we won't talk about it, okay?"

Slightly unsure, Jason gave a small nod, frowning. " Um, okay." 

" What..." Willis licked his chapped bottom lip, the moisture not sticking, rubbing his palms together rather roughly, the thin first layer of skin wearing away. Right words. Find the _right_ words.

" What happened to Fischer after.....?" After he decided eight-year-old Jason was too grown up for his sick, disgusting preferences, the bastard went somewhere, right? Somewhere to taint some other place with his presence. 

Hearing the name of the person  - an appellation not fit for that monster - who robbed him of innocence when he was still so young, Jason adopted a sour expression, like he took a bite of something foul and the taste clung to his tongue with persistence. This was a strong reminder that the childhood scars hadn't faded, barely healed up. Not surprising, Jason had had no one to help him through what alone was a very traumatising experience, but going through it aged five with no parents there to solace him? Wipe away those tears that in the right light, still shone their trails on his cheeks? Well, that made Willis despise himself more than he ever had. Jason was the sole thing he held no regrets about, but he could not say that about Jason's life. All the things he had to do and were done to him? That gave plenty of reasons for self-hatred.

" I don't know." Jason eventually mustered the willpower to say, returning his head into his hands, tufts of his hair sticking through his parted fingers. He was slumped over like he had no bone in his back to call a spine.

" I went to his place one afternoon after he told me to go to hell for being eight, and he was gone. Skipped town or somethin'. Maybe his molestation charges finally caught up with him and he ditched Gotham?"

Willis nodded, grim. If there was so much as a singular fragmented possibility that sicko was still breathing, he was gonna find him the second he could, have a good long, meaningful word with him. Namely, make him look double joined in every limb. He did remember what was the first few things he said to Fischer.

_".... You ever come near him again, Fischer, I'll fucking kill you."_

That promise still stood. The bastard better pray to a merciful God who would back Willis up on this, that he was long dead, a corpse rotting under a foot of dirt on the roadside. 

" If he told you to go away, why were you there again, Jason? Remember, you don't have to answer."

" Stop telling me that already. I don't do anything if I don't want to." Jason snapped, testy, agitated, to be expected. He had inherited enough from his father to throw all his walls up high and unwavering when something flew close to the heart. But he had opened up this much, that was considerable progress.

Pretence of irritation letting up, Jason sighed, cheeks blown out, glancing away but quickly returning his gaze to Willis' waiting one. Willis had never been patient, understanding, extremely caring on the outside, but he found his personality to betray him, fall unwanted to the ground, and felt like he could wait all of eternity for Jason to be ready to talk about these things.

" I was there to.... to - I don't _fucking_ know. One of my regulars was an arms dealer, I stole a gun from 'im and went to Fischer's door with it. I dunno what I planned on doing but he wasn't there for me to do it." Jason finished with a sniff then cleared his throat harshly, looking away again. Hindsight was 20/20, and he really wished he hadn't shouted all those things about whoring to his dad earlier that evening. In that fit of unruly emotions, he hadn't thought right. Revealing some truths weren't for the best, not even _Bruce_ knew that it wasn't just one guy he gratified, as far as his knowledge went, Fischer was the only one. 

But now Willis knew, knew things about Jason that Bruce didn't. Jason still wished he could take back a select few sentences he'd screamed out, but it was too late for what ifs. 

There were just some things a kid didn't want their parents knowing about. Sucking dicks for a living was by no means something he was proud of, much less so now that Willis knew.

" I see." Willis said, thoughtfully chewing on the inside of his cheek. There was no judgement in him like Jason could have expected from Bruce, had he told him the story of homicidal eight-year-old him. No frown of disapproval and Jason was fairly sure that Willis had envisioned gutting Fischer a minimum of twenty times over the course of them talking. Another thing that set his dads apart, Bruce refused to kill Jason's murderer, Willis hadn't hesitated to off the guy - Dante Murs - who threatened his life before he was even born. 

One dad thought his life was worth another's.

" Jason," Willis said, a sigh evident in his tone. What he was going to give as a reply, he had taken a moment to put some thought behind it.

" I don't blame you for wanting to kill that sick fuck. I don't think of you as anything but my son, no matter what you needed to do, okay? Hey, look at me. Whatever you've done, whatever you will do, nothing is ever going to change my view on you. You're my kid. _Mine_. Fischer, Sheila, Wayne, they don't change that. Neither does anyone else."

Jason jerked his head in a shaky nod, feeling way too emotional again and he hated it. He hated how Willis made him squirm on the inside, like he knew exactly how his mind functioned and what he was afraid of. What would Batman, Nightwing, Robin, the rest, what would they think of the indestructible Red Hood if they knew the survival methods of his formative years? They'd give him those pity-filled eyes that Bruce regarded him with for months after Jason told him about Fischer, when he was thirteen. But not Willis. Jason could see he was far from pleased, sadness, guilt, anger, all swirled around on his features, but never once pity. 

" Why are you like this, dad?" Jason asked, suddenly aware of how silent the room had fallen with neither speaking.

 "Like what?"

" You never used to be... understanding? I can't recall you ever hugging me. You've never told me you loved me." Both sentiments Jason used to tell himself meant nothing to him, but he couldn't deny how they made him feel.... _wanted_.  Bruce cared for him, yeah, Jason knew he did, but he was also the king of emotional dishonesty and the three simple words 'I love you' were three he had never heard from Bruce.

" I know, Jay. I'm sorry. I'm a terrible dad, I know that, I never gave you what you needed. But," Willis raised his sights off the floor and met Jason's gaze, the sharp point of regret in them stabbing Jason. " You were dead and now by some miracle, you're here again. This," he gestured to the both of them, " I don't want to fuck this up a second time. I gotta try to be better for you this time around." 

A faint smile flickered across Jason's face, he could feel the tug of it trying to pull up the corners of his lips. He didn't know why the hell he wanted to allow himself to smile, or why he resisted it, but there was distinctly something he liked about someone putting him first, especially a parent of his. 

" There's one thing I still don't get, dad," Jason said, " you said whoever the hell this bloke from the Red Hood gang wants me 'cause they think you're dead or some shit, but legally, I'm dead too. They shouldn't be coming after me unless they somehow know I'm alive." And that he was Red Hood.

" A lot of people don't know you're alive, do they?"

" Nope." 

" Then how does a Hood know you're alive, Jason? How could they know?" 

Funny story, Jason was the Hood, the current one and only, or so he had thought. Somehow, he was gonna have to break that to his dad at some point, along with how he was killed and resurrected. Those stories tied into one another, intertwined like a knot of roots, so when it came time to tell, it was all or nothing. 

" Right now, I've got no clue, but I gotta figure it out before they figure out where I am." Jason straightened and began to rise, dusting himself off as he did, his jeans caked in the fine grey film that stuck to him from the ground. Goddamn _headrush_ , it made him sway like a drunk, balance thrown off for seconds the way it always was when he got up too quickly, a real inconvenience in the battlefield and this time it was worse than usual. He didn't even notice that his dad had gotten up too until his hands were there to steady Jason, perhaps the only thing that kept him from stumbling. Willis frowned at him in concern.

" It's fine. Just headrush." Jason assured him, kinda liking the sensation of something helping him stay upright. He didn't brush Willis away in a hurry.

 

 

When he got off the floor, Bruce noticed Jason sway, violently, as if he was hurt or under the influence of a drug. The immediate thought that went through his head was what the hell did Willis do to him? It wouldn't have been difficult for him to jab Jason with a syringe of God knew what in the many times they'd been in close contact. Why would Willis do that? Most of what the man did was a mystery and Bruce despised not knowing why he was back again, only that it was to do with Jason in one way or another. And not in a good way.

Bruce couldn't look past the way Jason couldn't stand straight, the immediate need to take action seized hold when he was sure there was something amiss with his son and that Willis had caused it. He didn't stop to think of any other cause for Jason's dizziness.

He surged off the edge of the rooftop and spreading his cape like the wings of his namesake, glided across the gap, crashing through the window seconds later. Broken shards of glass sprayed across the floor with an ear-piercing clatter that at once snatched up both Jason's and Willis' attention, neither coming in time to stop Bruce from slamming his boot into Jason's father's side, kicking him across the room and away from their son. He hit the wall with a sharp _thud_ and gasp of pain. 

Wide, surprised, horrified teal eyes locked on Bruce and Bruce fixed his gaze on Jason through the whites of his mask. That was... _strange_. Jason seemed fine now. But what about just now, when he'd not been able to stand properly? 

" Dad!" Jason exclaimed when he got over the initial shock of Bruce bursting in, and rushed to Willis, which was the last thing Bruce expected or wanted him to do. 

" 'M - I'm fine, Jay." Willis grumbled, wincing when Jason grabbed his arm and pulled him up, his hand clamped over his side, over the already forming mess of black bruises.  Bruce may have kicked him harder than was necessary, but it was exactly how hard he had meant it. He would be lucky if nothing was broken. And why the hell was Jason going to _him_? 

" Jason, get away from him." Bruce ordered, sidling a few steps closer but pausing when he noticed Jason adopt a defensive stance, ready to fight with a glare twisted onto his features. 

" Fuck are you doing there?!" Jason demanded while at the same time, bracing Willis up against himself, looping his arm over his shoulders. Willis, despite the pain flaring up like a wildfire in his ribs, was having a really hard time understanding why in the seven circles of hell _Batman_ was referring to his son by name, like they knew one another.

Spying the familiar range of movement in Jason's hand, seconds from grabbing the gun from his side holster, Bruce said, 

" I'm not here to fight _you_ , Jason." But that didn't get through, Jason was as tense as he ever was, poised to strike, staring at Bruce in a way that stung, like he was the _enemy_. He made to approach Jason, only to be stopped a second time, now by Jason snatching the gun from its place and it being aimed at him. Bruce could have easily disabled him with the lack of distance between them, had the weapon on the ground in seconds and Jason with his arm behind his back, rendered inept of attack. But he didn't. He wasn't here, after all, to hurt Jason, only to keep him safe from that monster of a biological father of his.

" Don't take another step." Jason hissed, the tone of his voice defensive and threatening, a barrage of things that shouldn't be there when it was _Bruce_ he was talking to. 

" Jason-"

" _Don't_." Jason snapped, jerking his chin up a fraction, aggressive. Bruce was beginning to realise he'd read this situation completely wrong. Maybe Willis hadn't done anything to hurt Jason...? Shit. He'd just gone and made everything worse, hadn't he?

" You lied to me, B," he said, fire dancing in his glare, " I made you promise you wouldn't conduct that damn investigation and you lied, right to my face."

" It had to be done. We didn't know why _he_ ," he gestured to Willis and for a split second, the two glowered at one another. Most people wouldn't dare lock such a dark expression on the Bat himself.

" Came back to Gotham."  

Jason's eyes narrowed to slivers, like he was steeling himself for something. The edges of his upper lip tugged upward, unsheathing his teeth ever so slightly. 

" That doesn't change anything. You lied, went behind my back, and now you won't take the fucking hint that I don't want you around me." Jason pretty much spat out that last part, stepping past Bruce and pulling his father along with him. Even if Willis had wanted to, he couldn't have done anything to keep himself from being dragged along, Jason was far stronger than him and his position was akin to a ragdoll hanging from a child's hand. 

" Jason." Bruce said before he could escape into the night, before he could slip through his fingers again. This time his voice came none the softer than before, still stern but bearing less similarity to a commanding officer addressing his subordinate. Jason became petrified like a stone carving, giving Bruce only a view of his back, not dignifying him with face-to-face.

" What?"  There was three, maybe five, seconds worth of Jason's attention left and then he was done here. Bruce dared follow him here, to his childhood home after he thought  storming out of the cave the way he did made it evident, that he didn't want company, then burst like Jason _needed_ saving or some crap like that. 

" Step out there, and you're directly in the line of fire. Alone, you're not sa-"

" Oh my fucking _god_." Jason huffed, rolling his eyes hard enough to feel the grind against his eyesockets. Of course, Bruce wasn't going to try explaining or maybe _apologizing_ for the lying thing, not to mention kicking his dad into the wall. Without yet assessing the damage done, he couldn't tell how badly Bruce hurt Willis but he couldn't deny, this felt like deja vu, a nice throwback to all those times Catherine lost her stack and his parents would argue the night way.

" You're seriously still going on about that? Newsflash, I can take care of myself. I don't. Need. _You_." That came out harsh, maybe harsher than Jason meant but by god, he wasn't backtracking on his words. He looked over his shoulder and he met Bruce's gaze,  hidden behind his mask but attenuated, trained on Jason. He could tell there was something Bruce wanted to say but the slap-in-the-face comment of Jason's severely enabled his ability of speech.

"... Listen," Bruce tried but Jason was already on his way out by then. He doubted Bruce would follow just yet, inevitably he would, just not yet. Bruce had an unhealthy habit of not giving Jason headspace when he needed it, and when he needed solacing? That was when Bruce was a thousand miles away, out of touch and reach. 

" See ya." 

" Get back here, Jason!" About to step out of hand's reach, Jason's departure was abruptly stunted by Bruce's fingers lunging out and enlacing his arm, a steely, tight hold not easily broken. That's when Jason officially had it. He was about to plough his fist into the Bat's face when he felt his dad pull away from his side before Jason could grab him. He was really fucking fed up with his dads going haywire on him.

" Get your fucking hands off my son." Willis dared to order Bruce, somehow even managing to snap the grasp and free Jason, likely only possible because Bruce was caught in disbelief that _Willis_ said anything in Jason's defence. That look, Jason knew _that_ look even while hidden behind Bruce's cowl. The way he eyed Willis down, seconds from snapping him in half and contemplating whether or not to.

Though doubtful he would actually do it, Jason was prepared to step in the way, more than capable of fending Batman off, but he quite liked for once someone standing between him and trouble. Bruce was here to return him to the mansion, Jason _didn't_ want to go back there.

" _Jason_..." Bruce growled, like he was threatening Jason with a big 'or else' if he didn't comply. Willis stepped in before Jason could,

" I know 'cause you're Batman you think that makes you equivalent to god, but _do_ _not_  grab or talk to my kid like that." _There_ was that dark aggression Jason remembered. He didn't, of course, need his dad to get in the middle like this, but he was glad for it. For _once_ he didn't have to take the blunt force of arguing with Bruce.  
           
Bruce, intimidating as fuck in full Dark Knight gear, came closer to Willis, looming, towering over him, a good foot taller, but Willis didn't back down and Jason didn't miss the arm he raised a notch to cross over Jason's chest, protective barrier born of instinct.

" Hurt him," the grumble came from the deepest confines of Bruce's chest, " and I'm coming for you." He must know he'd lost this battle and this was his equivalent of a tactical retreat.

" If I do mistakenly hurt him," Willis responded right back, fearless despite his clear disadvantage, " Then trust me, I'll welcome your revenge. But I'm not gonna do anything that harms Jason, so go spend your misplaced aggression on someone who isn't my son."

Woah. That was... That was way more than most people had the gall to say to the Caped Crusader. Jason was beginning to get an idea on _who_ he inherited his attitude from.

" This isn't over, Jason."

One last glower towards them both and Bruce was gone, retracting his presence back into the dark of night from which he came. A whisper vanishing into blackness, there was no trace of him left.

Jason could hardly believe either of them survived that encounter and he released the breath he had subconsciously been holding with a soft exhale, but then a small groan to his left spiked his attention. That was when it came back to him how _hard_ Bruce kicked Willis.

" Dad, you okay?" Jason asked, already there to assist if need be. Willis had his hand over his bruised, possibly fractured ribs, gently massaging circles into the skin with his fingertips through the fabric of his shirt.

" I'm alright, Jay. Just sore is all." Jason had no trouble believing that, having been on the receiving end of Bruce's blows in the past when Red Hood and Batman danced the war tango. Concerned, it didn't slip past Jason how Willis' breaths came a little too quick and a little too shallow, common for someone who just had the wind kicked out of them but he wouldn't be at ease until he checked the damage out himself.

"Let's get outta here before he sends in the cavalry." Namely, Dick, assuming he wasn't already on his way that is.

" Where are we going?" Willis asked, voice pained but still his own, as he fell into step with his son whence he made his way to the door.

" I got a safe house not far from here. It's secure, one _he_ doesn't know about." After Bruce so effortlessly bypassed his security systems a few nights ago and broke into his place, Jason switched locations of residence for his own peace of mind.

" _Safe_ house?" Willis frowned, perplexed by this wave of new, difficult to believe information about Jason. Safe houses, his affiliation with Batman, the guns strapped to every inch of him, it was all painting a picture he disliked.

" Why do you need a safe house? And how the hell do you know Batman?"

" I'll explain once we get there." Jason sighed, well aware he had to let his dad in on his little secret now. He had hoped to delay the topic for as long as possible, but what choice did he have left?

*

" B, what happened? Where's Jay?" Dick asked, bouncing on Bruce's heels like a too eager puppy the instant he returned to the cave and got out of the Batmobile. But he was worried about his brother, worried about Jason, and Bruce could hardly hold him accountable for the upfront demands.

" He doesn't want to come back here." Bruce explained without sparing the details or context of the encounter.

" What? You didn't hurt him, did you?" Dick asked, the second part pricked with the sharp tone of accusation that made Bruce halt.

" Of course I didn't hurt him. I barely touched him."

" Not like that." Dick rolled his eyes, " Did you argue with him? Say anything that could have upset him? The two of you have been on edge lately." It wasn't a surprise that the empathic, perceptive Dick Grayson had caught wind of the icy drifts passing between his father and brother.

" Jason is in a state because of something that has recently come to light." Bruce really wanted them to leave it at that, so he wouldn't have to indulge Dick in the details of Jason's predicament.

" What's happened to him, Bruce? I'm his brother, if you tell me, maybe I can help?"

Possibly, yes, he could, Jason was known to act placidly towards Dick most times, if only barely tolerating him, but the last thing Bruce wanted was to wind Jason up even more than he already had by involving the rest of the family. He wagered if he just took a step back, let Jason have his space to think for a while, he would eventually come to see reason. If any part of him had doubted Jason's capability to protect himself against Willis if he sought to do him harm, he wouldn't have ever considered dropping this for a bit.

In the meantime, Bruce could focus on neutralising the threat of the hit on Jason.

" Jason will tell you what's going on if he wants to, Dick."

" Ahem, okay." Dick frowned, crinkles spreading across his forehead and brows pushed down. " But he's alright?"

Bruce considered what to say.

" For now." He started for the many computers while reaching behind his head to remove his cowl, once gone it revealed his true frustrations over what had transpired. He had wanted to break Willis in two for abandoning Jason in the first place, then snatch Jason up and haul him back here where he was safe whether he wanted to come or not, all things that would have aggravated the situation further. But he hated to leave his son there with god knows what lies Willis had fed him to win him on his side. Jason wasn't an easy one to manipulate so it really must have been some display of falsified truths.

" Anything happen while I was gone?" He asked Dick, sitting heavily by the multitude of monitors and moving the mouse to activate them via motion.

" Other than one Caitlin Mears calling to let you know she has to rain check you two's trip 'cause something came up, no. I chatted to her a bit. Nice lady."

Bruce nodded, tremendously relieved she was the one to cancel this time, because he really couldn't afford to spend a whole weekend away from Gotham now, not when he needed to help Jason, be it from afar.

Jason would react like a snapping turtle if he got too close again after those few very mistaken actions on Bruce's part, but at least he could get to the bottom of who was hiring people to take out the Hood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I don't reply to comments, it's because my notifications seldom work, not because I'm ignoring you like a piece of shit.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Won't say who, but some of you guys have come really close to guessing a lot of plot points and later developments. I've tried fooling y'all but you're too smart for me, my darlings.

From the moment his eyes caught a glimpse, a flash of red, wedged in the bare bookshelf of Jason's safe house and realised it was colour belonging to a metallic helmet, Willis knew he wasn't going to like what Jason wanted to tell him. Or rather, didn't want but now had to. He'd been 'round during the height of the Hood gang's reign in Gotham, he'd have to be completely retarded and lacking all five senses to boot if he didn't immediately recognize what that was staring back at him.

Red Hood's hood. Well, the new Red Hood's. The old ones used to run around with shapeless crimson balaclavas that massively differed from the latest Hood's headgear. From what Willis knew, the modern Red Hood popped out of nowhere one bright blue day and had been in town a slightly over a year. Over the course of his first night operating in Gotham, had taken out a quarter of the criminal empire, hit Black Mask below the belt like no one ever had and kept every crime boss quivering in their boots, anticipating who was his next target. The guy was tactical, a strategic mastermind, willing to push things further than was generally considered sane, but none of that made him smart. Smart in this hellhole of a city meant not simultaneously pissing off Roman Sionis and Batman, smart meant you didn't stroke powerful, dangerous people the wrong way on purpose.

But by some miracle or burst of pure luck, Red Hood was still alive and breathing, causing mayhem this way and that for not only Gotham's underbelly like some kind of mislead anti-villain, but also for Batman and his allies. Willis really couldn't figure that guy out what little had ever dwelled on the matter. Whose side was he on? Who was he fighting for? He was an enigma wrapped in mystery then boiled in a liquid riddle and though he had a rough at best relationship with anyone flying under the Hood mantle, one thing Willis undeniably liked about the newbie was that he had a strict no-dealing-to-kids policy. That was definitely rare and to be cherished quality for a Hood.

Willis had been apprehensive when he followed Jason through the door to his dark safe house, purposefully staying a few steps behind him so unbeknownst to Jason, he could take a secondary good look at him. Examine him over again.

Jason knew Batman, Jason had Red Hood's helmet, Jason wielded guns like they were apart of him, Jason had safe houses peppered around the city, Jason was muscled the way you could only expect a vigilante to be.

From what little of Jason's skin Willis had seen peeking from under the hems of his clothes, his hands, wrists, neck, less his face, there were scars on scars, each reminiscent of an old wound and far too many to be acquired by any normal, _legal_ profession. The thick white mark forming a rise atop Jason's jugular particularly caught Willis' attention. Once upon a time, it looked like Jason's throat had been slit. That on top of all of his childhood - pre and post birth - traumas? So much for Willis' hopes his kid's life would improve after day one.

He knew what all the signs were pointing to, practically screaming out the obvious but Willis didn't want to admit to himself what had been staring at him all along. His gaze lingered on the helmet but upon flitting back to Jason, watched him in a new light, making careful note of how the hood looked made for him. 

" Sit, dad." Jason said, breaking through his haze of putting together the pieces as he gestured to the worn out couch next to the bookshelf.

" I'm gonna grab some ice for those ribs of yours." He was already halfway to what appeared to be the kitchen door, pretty much sprinting to get away from his father and Willis suspected he knew why. Jason was trying to delay the inevitable as much as possible, squeeze out every second he could to keep from telling Willis what he begrudgingly was already admitting to himself was the truth about Jason's identity. All the clues were right here, screaming like air raid sirens.

A heartbeat away from being out of sight, Willis reached out and took Jason's wrist in his hand, didn't grab him roughly the way Batman had, but just let him know he needed his attention for a second. Like he had sworn to do on the day Jason was born, Willis was not about to put himself or his injuries before his son. True he might falter from that goal at times, but it was what he was striving for in the long call.

Unlike with Batman, Jason didn't pull back or try to release him limb, Willis uncurled his fingers and let Jason go the instant he turned around to listen. Willis had quickly caught up on the fact that Jason didn't like to be touched despite him not saying so and had thus avoided laying hands on him after the initial first hug. The last thing he wanted was to make his son uncomfortable. 

" Jason, forget about the ice for one minute-"

" Trust me, it's necessary. Br - _Bats_ kicks like a motherfucker." 

And how would Jason know that other than if...?

" Jason-"

" Seriously, dad, I'll be right back."  Jason whisked himself away before Willis could get another word in, subsequently leaving him alone and little from stranded in the dark living room. Had he not known Jason would return in a brief while, he would have followed right after to address this very on the nose situation. 

A cupboard door closing, dishes or something porcelain rattling around, Willis wasn't exactly sure of what Jason was doing in there but couldn't help the feeling that he would be intruding if he investigated. This was _Jason's_ home - or safe house - and despite claiming he was getting ice, Willis got the sense Jason was wanted to be alone for a moment and consider how he was going to word an explanation. If he needed solitude right now, Willis had no desire to deprive him of that.

While he was by his lonesome, Willis found himself unable to keep his gaze from revisiting the shiny cherry red helmet nesting on the shelf, there for all to see without shame, but that likely wasn't an obstacle as he didn't see Jason entertaining many guests who could see it and connect the dots.

He must have approached it at some point without his mind registering it because the next thing he knew, the helmet was in his hands, vacant black eyes glaring fiercely at him. The face itself was intimating, red painted metal moulded to resemble an unending, never lifting scowl that hid behind it every other emotion. That by itself was a powerful tool. 

On the shelf below the one the helmet had been placed on, was a neatly folded grey kevlar vest with a red bat plastered across the chest, as obvious as an unsaid point that needed to be proven. Beside that, there were guns, holsters, and a stockpile of gleaming golden bullets in small cardboard boxes. A hunting knife, its blade wavy and handle of foreign design, was laying flat on the body armour. 

Willis couldn't deny it any longer. Jason was.... Jason was Red Hood. That was a difficult nugget of information to swallow down and almost made him gag. It wasn't because of his rocky relationship with the gang from which Jason derived his name, Willis' displeasure over this spawned from the fear of knowing his baby was living a life as dangerous as he was. Any number of people would jump at a chance to gut Red Hood or spill his blood.

How Jason ever became _him_ was something he couldn't even begin to grasp and instead of trying to figure that out, he kept think that everyone who you should fear in Gotham, Penguin, Two-Face, Black Mask, _Joker_ , they all had it in for the Hood and Jason aggravated them on purpose. Willis had read a study once, explaining how people, especially children, who experienced sexual abuse often partook in extremely reckless and dangerous lifestyles as a means of regaining control, asserting dominance, and to disallow for anyone else's desires to be forced on them.  Half of the stunts that Red H - _Jason_ pulled made it easy to believe he was subconsciously trying to enforce a strong, independent outlook of himself. Red Hood was powerful, he was indestructible and to be feared, a man who could not be controlled or manipulated. No one else's will could be thrust upon him. That was who Jason was trying to be and trying to convince others he was.  

It was a mask, a facade, just a name and a symbol for him to stash his traumas behind.

But Willis wasn't going to tell Jason that. He wasn't going to attempt an analysis of his psychology aloud when knowing that could have very harmful repercussions at this moment. 

He put the helmet back down on the shelf's dust free surface and only then did he notice the small framed photo that had been facing him this whole time. Two people, one a towering adult the other a child, or more specifically, Batman and Robin. It looked a few years old. Frowning, Willis forgot the hood and reached out to take the photograph in his hand. In it, Robin was smiling, so widely all his teeth showed and his mask was disgruntled by laughter lines. His arms were folded, chest puffed out in cocky teenage boy confidence, leaning slightly on Batman who was visibly trying not to give into the smile that was betrayed on his features. Batman looked completely different then, younger, less angry.

A lot of rumours had been circulating Gotham's underbelly, saying Red Hood used to be Batman's child protégé and even if Willis hadn't known that, even if he hadn't known Jason was Red Hood, he would have recognised his child through the domino when the photo was this close up. If Batman and Jason were once in terms this good, it would explain some of that possessive, overprotective behaviour the Bat had shown back at the apartment.

So Jason used to be Robin? How the hell did he even get associated with Batman in the first place? He got adopted by that rich asshole Bruce Wayne but that didn't explain this. Immediately, Willis felt angry, angry to his core that someone had put his child in that godforsaken uniform and made him fight crime on the streets of the world's most dangerous city.  If Bruce Wayne didn't kill Jason, that left little else to be imagined other than his role as Robin had ultimately ended his life. And was it not rumoured that Joker-

" Figured it out?" Jason's voice, quiet though it was, appearing so suddenly behind him gave Willis a start he wasn't prepared for. Jason was snuck up on him without him ever hearing so much as a stray breath. Willis put the picture back down and turned around to face his son, who wasn't looking at him, instead studied the ground while he fumbled with the ice wrapped in a cloth in both hands.

" You're _him_ , aren't you? Red Hood?"

Jason nodded.

" And you used to be Robin?"

Another nod 'yes'. The way he was downcasting his gaze, it was clear he was ashamed.

" I - I didn't want you to know, dad." He admitted on the heels of a heavy swallow, then quickly added, " About Hood." 

" Why?" Willis was gentle when asking, took care to keep the tone calm, but he so desperately wanted to know why after all Jason had already told him, this was the truth he was most afraid of coming out. Not Fischer, not the rest of it, _this_.

Jason gave a half-assed shrug, slumping his shoulders a degree and intently eyeing down the icepack, scratching away some of the frost build-ups from the exterior with his index like that on itself was a task more important than what was going on in the present.      
" Lemme see if you have any broken ribs." 

" No, Jay. First, we need-"

" _Let_. Me see if you have any broken ribs." Jason repeated, force behind the insisting, fingers becoming hooked and burrowing into the ice pack. Don't take control away from him, don't ignore what _he_ wants, Willis quickly reminded himself,  and complied without further protesting for sake of not winding Jason up. He'd been absent for so long that no part of him felt he was entitled to give orders or even advise that might push Jason at a faster speed than he was comfortable with. He'd told Willis this much, he would unravel and tell the rest given his own time.

Jason motioned for Willis to sit down on the couch and before long, was kneeling down beside him to inspect the damage Bruce left behind in his bitch fit. With plenty of experience getting into strifes in the past, Willis knew what the drill was by now. He discarded his jacket and rolled up the hem of his shirt, exposing his side to the chilly apartment and Jason. He could feel his son's widened eyes grilling him the second he got a good view of his skin and really hoped he would ignore what he saw.

" ... Where'd you get all these scars?" 

Jason visually skimmed over the long dark pink lines with white ridges, some straight, some ragged, stretching like pointed fingers across his father's ribcage, originating from a thick mess of scar tissue on his back. They were obscured by the massive blotches of purple/black bruising but could not be hidden. They were of various ages and looked left behind by a whip studded with either bone or small stones.

" Like I told you," Willis sighed, looking somewhere past Jason, " there were consequences to defying Sheila."

Jason lowered his hands into his lap like weights magically poofed around his wrists. " Oh my god. I - I'm so sorry, dad. You wouldn't have had to do this if it weren't for me-"

" Shh. No, Jason, no," Willis cut him in time to stop him completing that sentence that would sum up the one thing he never wanted Jason to think.  He took Jason's chin lightly in between his thumb and index, tilting his head up the minimal amount it took for their gazes to interlock. Jason didn't recoil from the touch as Willis half anticipated him to and in place of resistance, there were traces of trust.

" This was me, okay? This was Sheila, this was Fischer, this was Dante, this was never anything you did, y'hear?" 

Blinking back the misplaced regret showing damp in his eyes, Jason nodded, fleetingly running his tongue along the creased flesh of his lower lip and sniffing. Willis got the inkling that Jason wasn't so easily convinced, but by how quickly he pressed the ice pack to his side, there was also the hint that Jason didn't want to pursue the subject again just yet. The cold felt like small knives pricking holes into Willis' flesh, even through the cloth Jason wrapped around the ice.

" The reason I didn't want you to know about me being Red Hood," Jason began out of the blue, rather distant as he carefully ran his fingertips along his father's ribs in search for small ridges that would indicate breaks. 

" Is because I didn't choose what Fischer and those other fuckers did to me, I didn't want it, but I chose to put on the hood, _me_. When  you told me about what happened after I was born, about how bad the Red Hood gang made everything for you, I didn't want you to think.... to think that.."

" Didn't want me to think you were one of them?" 

Jason bit the inside of his cheek, mumbling, " Yeah, something like that."

" Hm. I won't deny it, Jay, I'm not happy that you're Red Hood, but not because I think you're a murdering sadist like the rest of them, it's 'cause you're my kid, I worry that you're gonna get hurt out there. Gotham is a dangerous place, ten times as much so if you're a mask. But," he tilted his head to the side with this next acknowledgement, " I also can't deny that I'm proud of you."

Jason frowned, surprised, taken aback by that more than could be justified. Jesus Christ, hadn't anyone ever said those simple words to him?

" Why? I'm an outlaw, a rebel, a mob boss. I've killed people. I'm not _good_."

" Life's not about being good, Jay. I've killed people, too." Willis leaned back a notch while Jason listened in between applying a thick coat of balm to his side, intended to reduce the swelling. It smelled strong, like herbs and plants, definitely not an over-the-counter ointment. 

" I've read about the people you've put down. They're rabid fucking animals and it's for the betterment of humanity that they're dead. When you started running those gangs, people were scared to deal to kids. It also hit headlines that Red Hood obliterated a child prostitution ring right here in Gotham."

Jason nodded again but with this time more conviction. " I did do that. I put a bullet in the heads of every last one of those pimping scumbags." He grit his teeth, the memory of those terrified children he saved from that brothel still burning bright as Greek fire. The youngest among them had been six. _Six_. To say it made him angry was the understatement of the millennia.

" You won't ever know how many kids you saved from having the same life you used to. Tell me, Jason, how does that make you bad?"

" It shouldn't but.... I dunno. Batman says-"

" _Batman_?" Willis scoffed. " That grown-ass man-child masquerading as an overgrown flying rodent who beats the living hell out of the mentally unwell? Trust me, that guy is not fit to make assumptions about anyone." 

Jason smiled. He couldn't help it. For once not being the family disappointment felt unarguably good. He hadn't thought about it before, but if killing those assholes at the brothel had really saved children from a fate similar to his past, then it was worth pissing Bruce off by defying his thou shall not kill rule. He was so accustomed to people pointing out what he did wrong, where he messed up, that he had never taken the time out of his day to consider those innocents Red Hood had helped. Those he had _saved_.

" I don't think anything's broken, dad." Jason finally said when he pressed the icepack back on the excessive bruising.

*

Dick decided to go on patrol. He figured the exercise and blast of cool air in his face, filling his lungs, streaming through his hair, could lift some of the tension that had soaked into him simply by being in Bruce's presence. He wasn't sure what happened, because Bruce wouldn't disclose details or even the basic plotline, but whatever was between Bruce and Jason right now was a hot, sticky recipe for war. _Again_.

Dick wanted to slap both his brother and father upside the head because _damn,_ those two could not communicate to save their lives. They'd been doing so well, the strain of their relationship had been fading bit by bit and now they had to start going at each other's throats again? Well fuck that, Dick couldn't care less that Bruce said 'Jason will tell you if he wants to' because something was seriously up with his Little Wing for him to be acting the way he was. Bruce thought Jason was just bad when he lashed out, like a naughty child, but Dick knew better than that. Jason reacted irrationally to Bruce's way too possessive nature when he was hurt, be it emotionally or physically.  Fuck leaving Jason by himself and fuck Bruce telling him not to get involved. 

As usual, Dick was going to have to restore the peace to his emotionally constipated family.

Faking being out on patrol gave him plenty of time to look for Jason. He went through all the safe houses he knew Jason had, a total of twenty in Gotham alone, searching each one for clues as to where he could locate his brother. Whatever Jason was going through right now, he shouldn't have to go at it alone. He was hurting, that much had been obvious since he begrudgingly agreed to come to Dick's apartment. And Dick had enough experience with Bruce, that often times perceived as heartless man, to know he had handled what transpired with Jason incorrectly. Instead of reassuring him, Bruce probably unintentionally belittled him and made him feel like a subordinate. 

Dick did his very best to find Jason on foot, but when that came up with nada, he reluctantly tapped into the tracker he knew Bruce had attached to Jason without his awareness. He didn't want to use this but saw little other choice and lo and behold, Jason either hadn't found the device or was too distracted to look for it because it seemed to still be on him. Those were unusual for his little bird.

Tracing the signal, it lead Dick to a rundown part of the city, the typical locations Jason could be expected to dwell in out of something like a habit, and from there he could place his brother's whereabouts to an apartment on ground level, not the usual well-vantaged points he chose. He must've picked this safe house in a hurry, Dick found himself musing as he approached.

His intentions weren't to spy the way Bruce would have, nor was he going to break in and make Jason feel like he was cornered. He was just going to check in on him and try to repair any damage Bruce's insensitivity had undoubtedly caused Jason's fragile mentality. 

 

 

A knock. On the door. That wasn't a complex sound, it was routine for almost every person on the face of the earth, but it almost sent Jason into a cardiac arrest with the fright it gave him. How stupid that Red Hood could be scared so easily but in all honesty, he didn't know who could be behind that door. He didn't get any visitors outside of the occasional family member and he didn't want to see any of those jerkfaces right now, because no question, if any of them came it was at Bruce's orders to scold him on his recent behaviour. Defying Lord Wayne? Jason should just put the burner in his mouth and turn himself into a ghost, where he would haunt the shit out of Wayne Manor. 

From the corner of his peripheral view, eyes fixed on the foreboding door, Jason noticed Willis tensed up in typical Todd mannerism; expecting a fight. 

" I'll get it." Jason said, weary, the tiredness of the day behind seeping into bone-deep. He hoped to god he wasn't going to have to battle through an intervention again because he really didn't have the energy to spare. Jason tugged the gun from his thigh holster and cocked it before looking through the peephole to check who it was and if he should blow their brains out to save himself a lecture. He wasn't surprised to see that stylishly messed up mop of raven locks and bright blue eyes glazed with concern. Dick. Of course, Bruce sent Dick. The man exploited the hell out of his big brother's caring nature to benefit his own agendas, but what was one flaw in the sea of them that Bruce had?

Sighing, Jason eased the door open a crack and motioned behind his back for his father to stay out of sight while he handled this.

" Jay...." Dick uttered, seemingly surprised at finding Jason without a black eye to sport after arguing with Bruce. Their bickering often times ended in physical confrontation and although Bruce avoided hurting Jason best he could, it wasn't something that could always be done.

" What do you want, Dick? Bruce send you here?" He asked, leaning against the doorframe and folding his arms across his chest, putting on a face that purposefully hinted for DIck to hurry up with his justifications for being here, because he had five seconds before Jason slammed the door on him.

" I came to see if you were alright. You and Bruce had a falling out from what I could tell and-"

" It wasn't a falling out, I just want him to leave me alone and clearly," he gestured to Dick with a sweep of his hand, " he can't even give me that much without dispatching a babysitter."

" Bruce didn't send me, Little Wing. He doesn't know that I'm here." Dick said earnestly and Jason almost believed him. He cocked a brow.

" _Oh_? Then how did you find me without the lord commander's fancy spyware?" 

Pulling it out of his jacket pocket, Dick raised his phone to show Jason, the screen displaying a map of Gotham with a red bat icon blinking on top of the spot that Jason immediately recognised as where they were now.

" He planted a tracker on you. I'm sorry I used it-"

" Son-of-a- _bitch_!" Jason exclaimed with anger flaring as suddenly as a supernova, already yanking his red hoodie over his head to search it for the device. His hair was dishevelled, made into a complete state by the fabric moving roughly over it, strands sticking this way and that, but Jason didn't stop to so much as smoothening it down in his hasty search. He cursed to himself in the numerous tongues he was fluent in while he went through his pockets and every spare inch of the garment, all the while Dick resisted the temptation to reach out and stroke down the unruly tufts of his dark tresses. Jason would _not_ appreciate that.

" Check your holsters, Jay." Dick advised, still standing at the mouth of the door while Jason so unceremoniously rummaged in every place the tracker could be concealed. Jason huffed something unintelligent and went through the compartments in his holsters, quickly spying it, the small device that that in no way, shape or form belonged there. He hurled it to the ground and crushed it with the heel of his boot with a satisfying crunch as the metal and delicate circuit board gave way. 

" What's going on with you, Jason?" Dick asked when Jason calmed, again meeting his gaze whilst Jason straightened the hem of his tee, that had been riding up his torso with the frantic movements. A flash of tan skin, abs, and webs of scars then nothing more but the material of the garment. Dick raised his eyes above Jason's neckline slowly. 

" Is this to do with what you asked me a few nights ago? About our mothers? And who was that guy you were talking to in the cemetery? Did Bruce hurt you? Did he say something?"

Jason waited impatiently for the rapid flow of questions pouring out of Dick's mouth to stem somewhat before he tried to get a word in. And when he did, it came off as irritated, which happened to be exactly what he was.

" None of your business, none of your business, and none of your business. How's that sound?"

" Sounds awfully defensive." 

Jason glowered, not meaning to pout what little he did. His hand quivered on the door handle and he wanted to badly to slam it shut, slam Dick on the _outside_ of his defences because he did not want him creeping through them the way he always did. 

" Just leave me alone."

Dick rolled his eyes at Jason's theatrics, the very ones he had anticipated, and before he gave Jason the opportunity to shut him out like so many times before, he snatched up both his brother's arms and hurriedly dragged him into an embrace.

" There, there, Little Wing." Dick soothed and could tell Jason yearned to kick him into the wall, but resisted the desire by planting both his hands on Dick's chest and pushing him back despite his efforts to cling on like a limpet. Jason was stronger than him.

" _Geddoff_." Jason grunted and with a whine of protest over the loss, Dick was forced to let go, no match for that which Jason had in superior quantities to him: brute force.

" If there's something wrong, I wanna help you, Jase."

" I've told you a thousand times, don't call me that, and _fuck_. _Off_. I'm fine."

" If that were the case then-"

" Hate to break up this reunion," Jason almost punched a hole in his dad's head from instinct after he appeared so silently beside him and gave him a start. His heart almost exploded from his chest and he really wished people would stop sneaking up on him.

" But we have more pressing issues. S-"

" Umm..."

Dick frowned at him, at a loss for words for what must have been the first time Jason had seen him. Interesting development, Dick was a ways prettier with his mouth shut.

" Who are you?"

" Dad!" Jason exclaimed as if to provide an answer to his brother's question. " I told you to stay where he couldn't see you!"

Dick's puzzlement grew, as did the crinkles on his forehead. His head snapped from Jason to Willis then back.

" _Dad_?" He motioned from one to the other with his hands, lips forming silent words as he tried to process what the hell was going on. Jason facepalmed with a loud smack, leaving a red mark on himself while Willis absently studied the edges of his teeth with his tongue, waiting for Dick to quieten down so he could add the last of his sentence.

" Are you done?" Willis inquired when Dick had ceased his mumbling and conformed to an intelligent level of brainwave activity. Mostly.

" Jay is he really-"

" _Yes_." Jason huffed as he grabbed Dick by his wrist and yanked him into the house with a yelp of surprise, kicking the door shut behind. He heaved a mighty sigh of frustration and ran his hand through his hair.

" Jason-" Willis tried but Jason raised a hand to silence him.

" One second, father." Jason stopped staring at the ceiling he tried to draw the idea from on what to do now that Dick knew. They couldn't kill him, obviously. 

Jason clicked his tongue before beginning.

" Dick, this is my not-dead-dad, not-dead-dad, this is Dick Grayson, my adoptive pain in the ass brother."

Jaw agape, Dick stared at Willis, perplexed, managing only dumbfounded, " I thought you _were_ dead."

Willis shrugged his shoulders. " It's a family tradition."

Jason never spoke about his parents, at least not to Dick, he had no idea what to make of this and Willis as a whole. Where did he come from? How long had Jason been wound up because this was assuredly the culprit to his recent behaviour, an understandable culprit at that? Bruce knew about this, that was for sure, and would explain some of his anger of late. Dick, upon giving Willis a visual inspection, noticed he was favouring his left side, tender on the right. His breathing was a tad too shallow. He was hurt and it had happened recently.

_Goddammit, Bruce. What have you done?_

And fuck, did Willis look a lot like Jason, or the other way around. It went beyond just the usual parent/child resemblance. It was actually fairly creepy, this biggest differentiation being Jason being twice his father's size, both in height and muscle structure. Willis looked fairly suffered and not just because Bruce for fair certainty, injured him. But why did Bruce do that? In his eyes, Dick could assume as much that Bruce perceived Willis as a threat to Jason, but by no means was Jason inept to defend himself if he needed.

" Go ahead, Dick." Jason huffed, snapping Dick out of the state of turning gearwheels.

" Wh - what?" Dick blinked, not really knowing how to make head or tail out of this. What was he meant to think?

" Berate me for having anything to do with my biological father the way Bruce would want you to. I _implore_ you."  Jason narrowed his eyes, his folded arms tightening around him while he waited.

" Uh, I-"

" Boys," Willis held up his hands, drawing attention to himself. They both shut up long enough to listen.

" As much as the two of you need to catch up, you can do that later." Over his shoulder, he gestured to the closed window with parted curtains, overlooking the street illuminated by the dull glow of dying lights.

" Someone just pulled up outside."

" Yeah, _him_." Jason jabbed a finger in Dick's direction in accusation.

" I walked here." Dick responded in defence of himself. With another eye roll, Jason went to the window to check it out, family in tow at a reasonable pace. Resting his palms on the window sill, Jason leaned in and examined the outside through the thin cracked glass, taking quick note of the duo of black vans parked there. And there were guys with guns climbing out. He instantly recognised one as Baldie, his new least favourite gangbanger. He yelled something to his subordinates.

" Oh fuck me." Jason muttered with hostility, grabbing his helmet in preparation for what he knew was to come. He had really hoped he wouldn't have to be involved in another skirmish tonight and yet here he was, whipping his pistols out and cocking them for a fight. He felt Willis and Dick watching as he pushed his hood down and over his head with a click of the locks closing, Dick all ready with his escrima stick in hand.

" How'd they track you here?" Dick asked,  raising his mask to his face and smoothing down the edges to make the spirit gum stick. Unsurprised by anything at this point, Willis observed.

" I haven't got a fucking clu-" Jason began, about ready to nail a bullet into the heads of all those fucktards outside, when the sound of glass shattering cut him short of finishing that sentence. Jason's head snapped to the left where the object thrown through the window landed. He could have been Barry Allen and still not been able to move fast enough to get out of the grenade's blast radius before it went off.

Then the world around him shook off its foundations.

Being closest to it, the shockwave careered into Jason without mercy, his armour barely with standing against the flames and sudden wild rush of heat, barely enough to protect him from the fires. It _engulfed_ him. Kevlar stinged, Jason was hurled across the room, helmet cracking as his face met the ground with a _smack_ , pain exploded through his head, hot, wet, and sticky with a coppery scent. Crumbled into the dirt, his body felt on fire,  dizzy from nerve endings screaming to his brain. He heard someone urgently exclaim his name but it sounded so far off he couldn't place it over the sound of shouts, more glass breaking, and smacks of fists meeting flesh. Gunfire rattled through the burning apartment.

_" Argh-!"_

Someone went down next to him with a hard slam and a grunt. It sounded like Dick. There was the scuffling of bodies atop bodies, like several men were holding him down. 

Groaning past the blood quickly  pooling in his mouth, Jason tried and failed to pick himself up off the ground or even to push his eyes open to see how badly his father and brother were hurt, as the blast must have hit them too, only he couldn't get his shaking limbs to act out his brain's sluggish commands. Every shift or tiny bit of movement sent sharp electrical spikes of pain through his bicep, a solid, sharp shard of something impaling it. 

" - et your hands off my son!" A voice distinctly like his father's, yelled and was met with the crack of a fist, when hands came down around Jason's wrists, ignorant to the shard through his arm, grasping at him and yanking to his feet. Gasping in pain barely registered in his head over how weak and unable to hold himself up he felt. Jason's lids ached under the sheer amount of effort it took to part them, giving him a narrow view of a fuzzy, teetering world where Baldie approached him with a smirk larger than life. When the man's big hand roughly grabbed his chin, thumb pulling down on his lower lip to show his teeth, Jason groaned and drew his shoulder further in, the thugs the only things keeping him from dropping back down. 

" Nice to see you again, baby." Baldie sneered though Jason barely made it out past the loud humming in his skull.

" The boss is gonna take real good care of you, you and your little family here."

Then Jason was punched in the face so hard that silvery stars exploded in his eyes before everything swivelled to black.

*

A frail whine of pain slipped past Jason's grated teeth, mind slowly drifting back towards the pain of wakefulness. His arm throbbed, head felt like an anvil was parked on it, and every bit of him stung as if salt had been rubbed into his raw flesh. Even before his eyes were open he tried to move, the attempt cut short by the solid feel of being restrained, wrists and ankles weighed down and holding him to whatever flat, cool surface he was laid out on. It felt like a table. Off to the side, he could hear the breathy murmuring of two or more people. Someone was here with him.

It took tremendous effort, but when he got his eyes to bat open to the boom of a flood light hanging above him, the first thing he saw was a tube filled with dull grey liquid, attached to a clear bad hung up and filled with whatever it was that was moving through it. Groggy, Jason's gaze followed the tube as it ran closer and closer until it reached the inside of his elbow, a needle buried deep through his skin, pumping that stuff in and _god_ , it felt so cold, like the linings of his veins were icing over. Jason shivered, drawing a stuttering breath.

The murmuring stopped when he did.

" He's awake."

Two figures came into his fogged up vision, the smaller one distinctly female. She reached out and Jason tried to shy back, but wasn't able to prevent her from running the back of her hand down his cheek with a nurturing, almost motherly _shh_ when he whimpered.

" Don't be scared, little angel." She said, her face slowly coming into focus but voice sounding remarkably familiar to someone he both knew and didn't. Not a voice he had ever heard much.

" It's not you we want to hurt." She continued while Jason was beginning to make out her curly brown hair and deep blue eyes, the small upward tilt of the corners of her rusty rose lips, the thin, delicately sculpted nose, ten or fifteen years his senior... She looked identical to that actress Bruce was dating, Caitlin Mears, but that was impossible. It was _impossible_.

Smiling, she began humming a tune that reminded him of a lullaby, stroking the side of his face and gazing down at him with eyes as warm as they were deranged, a terrifying quiet sort of madness.

" Wh-" Jason attempted but when the second person came close enough for him to see, the words stunted, slamming full throttle into a wall of disbelief lodged in his throat. Jason tried to utter something, he didn't know what, but all that came out was a choked wet gasp when seeing the one man he prayed he never would have to again.

Fischer smirked, sharp yellowing teeth flashing in between his chapped lips.

" Good to see you again, Jasey. Miss me?" Why was he here?!

God, no, this wasn't happening. This wasn't happening! Jason jerked against the binds pinning him down hard, uncaring towards the multitude of pain receptors it flared to life. The tube running into him caught on something and he winced violently.

" You're making him fuss, Fischer. We need him calm otherwise it won't work." The woman scolded him though never once let up her trained smile.

" Apologies, Caitlin." Fischer gave a small mock bow, retreating a few steps but his leer remained ever fixed on Jason's desperately helpless form.

" That's it, angel." She soothed, coaxing him to stay still when he quit yanking his limbs for the futile nature of freeing himself this way.  He bared his teeth at her when her finger slid down his face and beneath his chin, tickling him like she just couldn't keep her hands off him.

" Don't f - fucking touch me." Jason snapped and she chuckled merrily, withdrawing and giving him a few feet of distance.

" Just like your father, Jason. So fiery. You'll do just fine."

Jason was about demand what the ever loving fuck she was flapping her gums about when a wave of internal electric moved through him. It hurt, hurt so much you wouldn't believe. It tore a cry of pain from his lungs and made his muscles twitch and spasm without his control, whatever poison they were filling him with undoubtedly the cause. It made him writhe, jerk, muscles constricting and pulling tight just under his skin. When the sparks started dying down briefly and his body trembled less, Jason became aware of the bile building up beneath his tongue, in the back of his throat, bubbling up in his stomach. He choked, gagged, struggled to push it down.  
  
Caitlin smiled sweetly, no part of her expression fit for the moment.

" That's it, baby doll. Take in all of your medicine."

Trying not to puke, Jason didn't hear that last part, too focused and panicking over how fucking freezing his body was suddenly becoming. He couldn't keep his breathing still with the icy tremors wracking him, as if his system's ability to regulate heat was shutting down.

He didn't know what they were doing to him, only that he was so damn _cold_.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun dun.


	13. Chapter 13

His wrists were cuffed, securely behind his back. Jason was freezing, too cold to try escaping, stiff limbs incapable of doing so much as holding him up. Kneeling, slumped over, arms wrapped around himself, Jason shivered uncontrollably on the concrete floor, the chills seeping bone-deep. Nausea and spasms had passed for the most part, but that left him with the cold and nothing but the cold to focus on. He'd always hated to be anything but warm, but he had never been this feverishly chilled to the marrow.  His skin had gone pale white, like milk, rippling with goosebumps and he'd tried rubbing warmth back into his arms with his uncoordinated, bound hands, but that psychotic bitch Caitlin cut away his shirt somewhere before releasing him off that damn table, his exposed skin was impossible to keep even mildly warm. He had no idea what Bruce's girlfriend wanted, she wouldn't say, she kept smiling like a nursery school teacher and he couldn't imagine what her long call was. 

At first, Jason didn't know what was happening to him, his mind stupidly slow, and it had taken him way too long to realise what it was that had done this to him. That drug they pumped him full of, that must have been the very same his father told him of, grave dust. Things like fatal side effects, muscle spasms, vomiting, untreatable hypothermia, freezing to death from the inside out.... those were things that he recalled best from their conversation. Awesome. Fucking _awesome_. Speaking of his father, Jason hadn't seen him or Dick since being brought to wherever he now was, and couldn't _not_ be afraid Baldie and his thugs had shot them both dead at the scene of his burnt-out apartment. 

Dragging in a slow, shallow breath that rattled around the hollows of his chest, Jason coughed raggedly, whimpering and drawing himself further into a tight ball on the tail end of it. He knew this was bad, could feel the drowsiness starting to set in an couldn't get over how ridiculous this was. Him, Jason Todd, _Red Hood_ , freezing to death in mid-July, on his knees like a cheap hooker on the floor of some crummy warehouse. The irony of it forced a bitter smile on to his face that was quickly wiped away by another fit of coughing. 

For the umpteenth time in this hour alone, Jason forced together the crumbs of remaining strength he still had to gather his arms beneath himself and push to get onto his feet, only to fall flat on his face, splitting his lip against the floor with a dull _thwap_. He sniffed and spat a glob of blood out the side of his mouth.

Just then, the door of this locked windowless room opened with a loud _creeak_ , casting in a cascade of migraine-inducing artificial light from the hall outside. Caitlin's silhouette appeared against it and he was glaring before she shut them both in, click, click, clicking across the space between them with her six-inch heels and expensive designer skirts. She stopped a foot away from him. Fischer wasn't with her, Jason didn't know where he'd fucked off to. The damn paedophile was probably visiting jailbait websites online in a dark corner somewhere since if aged eight Jason was too old for him, then now he definitely was. That at least was relieving.

" Hello again, my darling."

" Wh - wh - what do you w - want, b - bitch?" Jason demanded through his shaking, failing to keep his voice still. He glowered up at her, eyes hard and dark despite how groggy he was, tired to boot. She gracefully knelt down and balancing on the fronts of her feet, carefully swept his bangs from his face, damp with cold-sweat. Jason pulled back, lip curled back in displeasure.

" Such a pretty little birdy." Caitlin chuckled, blinking slowly, thick feathery eyelashes beating like the wings of a butterfly, looking at him tenderly the way he used to imagine a mother would. But coming from her? He hated it. It was _unsettling_.

" Wh - what h - have you done to m - my dad? My br - brother?" 

She stared at him without ever hearing the question, instead, she placed her hand on his forehead before he could pull away.

" Oh dear,  have you caught a cold? You're freezing."

Jason choked. Was she shitting him right now? Didn't she remember _she_ was the one who forced the drug that did this into him? 

Caitlin's hand started to wander down from his forehead, fingers pads grazing along his neck and collarbone in a way he was _not_ alright with. She tilted her head, the tip of her tongue pricking out the side of her mouth as she studied his bared chest for too long to be innocent.  Jesus fuck, he shoulda known his surrogate father's new girlfriend would be some kind of sick perv. She moved down, down, down along the tight muscle of his abs, all the while he shivered within every inch of himself.

" D - don't touch m -  me." Jason managed to move his stiff, dead-weight leg and kick her back, away from him as hard as he could, though he wished he'd been strong enough to at least make her lose her footing. She frowned, irked by his resistance to her.

" That wasn't very nice, Jason." This was the first time he had ever seen her without her practised camera smile, the corners of her lips turned down as a testament to her displeasure.

" T - told you n - t to touch m - me." He slurred, coughing harshly the way that made his entire body shake. He groaned when the choking subsided, inhaling wheezily while she watched. He drew his shoulders further inwards and pulled his knees up to his chest, another bout of nausea coming on.

She rose. " I'm sorry, little angel. I forgot you don't like to be touched." Caitlin said like she had a crumb of sympathy in her and Jason raised his head, brows furrowed. How the hell did she know that?

" I used to be just like you." She continued, eyeing him. " Don't want anyone to touch you, because it reminds you, doesn't it? Reminds you of all those bad men who had their grubby mitts all over you?"

" Sh - shut up..." Jason groaned, blinking heavily, this the last thing he wanted to hear now. Fischer had told her about _it_ , hadn't he? Probably bragged about nailing a five-year-old after contributing to his father's absence.

" Does it make you think back on taking their loads and mewling at their feet for more?"

" S - _stoppit_."

Caitlin's very blue eyes narrowed to slivers, as if taking something he was unaware of out on him. Some ancient, deep-rooted anger alive beneath the surface.

" Face it, baby, you're just a whore. Birthed to be screwed." Caitlin's heeled shoe collided into his face, _smack_ , sharp point ripping into his cheek, parting the flesh wide open. Jason fell on his back with a sharp gasp of searing pain, already feeling blood trickling, hands twisted impossibly behind his back where they still were bound. He hissed through his teeth, a hiss turned whine when Caitlin came to stand above him, feet planted on either side, lingering there for seconds before she lowered herself - right on top of him. Jason shifted in the utmost discomfort, willing for the power to throw her off, but the GD drained the life from him. He whimpered in the face of this horribly familiar situation.

" Just a whore.... Why not make like one, baby doll?" She leaned down and a breathy giggle that ruffled his hair, pushed her mouth onto his unresponsive one, teeth sinking into his lower lip, tugging at it playfully like nothing was wrong, like she wasn't his other _father's_ frigging _girlfriend_. Brain not working fast enough to process, Jason squirmed beneath her weight and she started moving her hips back and forth, trying to jerk him off through his pants, as if she could actually get him into this. 

" Yeah," she went when she stopped kissing him and spoke in between sucking bruises into the soft exposed skin of his neck. " Stay still, little birdy, just like that... Let momma take good care of you..."

Jason's breath shuddered, either from cold or disgust, heavy knots of repulsion tightening in his gut the further down she went. He wanted so badly to push her off and never be pinned down for someone's pleasure ever again, but for the life of him couldn't, freezing and disconnected from what was going on, like it was an outer body experience where Caitlin Mears, Bruce's girlfriend, was doing _this_ to him.  

Now here was a debate. She was warm and he was able to glean some of her body heat to feel something other than icy numbness, and if she stayed here he might not freeze to death so fast, but that would mean ignoring the fact that she was unbuckling his belt.  If he closed his eyes the way he used to as a kid and go somewhere else in his head, then he may make it through his, but fuck no, he wasn't going back _there_. Not now, not ever. 

" Yes, that's it, my sweet little darling, lay still and-"

Jason threw his upper body up to slam into her, propelling her clear off him and onto the floor. She gasped, either in pain or the shock of what he did, falling smack onto the ground while tried using the second of time to yank his hands free of his restraints, but the damn cold made him so numb, limbs unresponsive, that they would not - _could_ not twist the way he needed them to. Jason couldn't bend his wrists, move his fingers, nothing. He growled in frustration and Caitlin - who he hadn't notice getting up - was looming over him again before he knew what was what, and with a splash, a pail's worth of cold water was doused over him, soaking into his jeans, his skin, the chill hitting the marrow of his bones. Where she got the water from was a mystery to him, maybe it had been in the room all along and he just hadn't noticed, but now he was blinking it back, gasping it in, all the while it made him colder tenfold and Caitlin smoothened the loose strands of her hair. 

It reminded him - god it _reminded_ him of laying bound and beaten within an inch of his life on the concrete floor of that warehouse in Ethiopia, honeysuckle and nicotines mixing over the overpowering stench of blood in the air, Joker cackling maniacally, Sheila casually standing over him while he slowly bled out. Only this time, he wasn't bleeding, he was freezing. 

She moved and Jason's lips pushed a whimper through before he could help it, in his mind, back _there_ , with _him_ , with _her_ , but somehow so alone. 

" Miserable whelp, little one, that's what you are." Caitlin muttered, annoyed, as she tossed the bucket somewhere it a loud metallic clang. The sound bounced around Jason's head that was getting so unfocused, fuzzy, as hazy as a summer day at Robinson Park. Speaking of haze, Jason was beginning to sink into bottomless depths of it, everything becoming detached if it wasn't before. He didn't notice he was leaning back until he felt - or heard - the crack of him hitting the floor again, the sparks of pain barely going noticed. 

The door opened again and there were footfalls, coming from more than one set of feet, but Jason could only see the blurring outlines of silhouettes coming into the room. He groaned and tried pushing himself off the ground on instinct that Bruce had drilled into him, never let the enemy catch you down, but in truth, there was no part of him that actually _wanted_ to find his feet again when he so badly yearned to give into how tired he was. His breathing was too slow, too shallow, and the constant drip, drip, dripping of beads of water rolling down from him felt way too loud.

"...... Don't hurt him, don't touch him, just keep watch, got it?" 

" Aye, ma'am." 

" Good. Then I'll be back soon." 

The door slammed and Jason was pretty sure that by the voices and familiar if unclear faces he was seeing, that Caitlin just locked him in here with Baldie and Fischer. 

*

" He's got your eyes, you know." 

Gritting his teeth split lip aside, Willis glared up at that pin-up bitch when she arrived with that pretty readied smile all prepped to light up her face and hide the psycho within. Were it not for the chains wound tight around his wrists that kept him fastened with his back against the wall, he would have had his hands three quarters around her throat by now. He yanked at the binds, chainlinks clanging together, jarring the flesh ran raw by his struggles to get free.

" Where is Jason?" He snapped. " What have you done to him?"

" Nothing. I'm not going to hurt him, he's not the one I want. He's just misfortunate enough to be _yours_."

" Yeah? So what do you want from me?" 

Caitlin eyed him in consideration as she pulled up a chair from beside the wall opposite and took a seat, crossing one leg gracefully over the other. Willis had hated her from the moment he saw her. The way she looked, the way she walked and toyed with people like puppets on the ends of strings, it reminded him all too much of Sheila. 

" You've probably figured it out by now." She said. " So I won't-"

" Lady, I don't know who you are or what you want, I only care about where my son is."

" Really? That's interesting..." She mused, holding her chin in between her thumb and index and looking all thoughtful.

" How so?" Willis inquired with a bitter, sardonic smile that barely hid how much he wanted her to drop dead so he could find Jason. The thought of what they could have done to him...  He was hurt in the explosion, there had been blood, he recalled, Jason had barely been conscious when they dragged him off the ground...  he'd been so pale, broken fragments of his hood cutting into his face... but Willis got the sense that if Caitlin wanted them dead right away they already would be. That at least went for him and Jason. He hadn't seen that kid claiming to be Jason's adoptive brother. Caitlin could have shot him in the head for all he knew.

" Well, you see, that's all you've ever cared about." Caitlin's sweet smile remained but revealed a flash of white teeth for seconds, emotion, _anger_ , building up in her eyes as she spoke. 

" _Jason_." She spat, bitterly. " It's always been about him, hasn't it? Sweet cutesie little Jason? Nothing else - _no one_ else matters, do they?"

" The hell are you talking about?" 

" You see," she leaned forward, pursing her lips. " it's a bit of a long story."

Willis gestured to the chains and sarcastically said, " Evidently I have time."

" I'll humour you then. We do have a few moments." Before he could inquire what they had a few moments before, Caitlin was already launching into a full-on evil villain monologue. 

" Long ago, there lived a little girl in a city called Gotham. She didn't have much, her family was a trainwreck, her mother was dead, and it was just her, her big sister, and their father. Their father was a pig, he didn't care about them, all he cared about was money, drugs, whores, and how much profits he could glean from terrorizing the city with his gang. One dark, dull, stormy day, they get news that her big sister is dead. Killed by a bitch called Sheila Haywood."

Willis swallowed down the something that was hard and heavy and stung in his throat because this was starting to sound like the start of something he was all too well versed in. 

" Then when that poor little girl thinks it can get no worse, her father's stumbles home, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the chest. It wasn't straight, didn't go right into the heart, clearly amateur, as if the shooter wasn't. Expecting. The _throwback_." Her teeth ground with each word, their perfect pearly surfaces chipping against themselves. Her long, painted fingernails dug into the meat of her clasped hands, burrowing in until ribbons of crimson were beginning to peak from betwixt the partings.

" Because Jason is _so important_ , Dante Murs had to die...."

With a sniff, she cleared her throat, resumed her composure, and went on with what was turning out to be a hell of a story.

" Yes, he was an ass, he was rude, mean, brash, uncaring, but he was still her _father_. The only one she had. She tried to save him, but it was too late. He bled to death in his eleven-year-old daughter's arms. No one knows this, but my real name is, in fact, Caitlin _Murs_. Had to change it, most people don't like the daughters of mob bosses becoming big in Hollywood. It's bad for publicity." Caitlin gave a light-hearted chuckle at the end of that, like it was a funny relatable problem that everyone had had once or twice in their lives.

" Caitlin, I-"

" Before I became an actress, I made my living doing other frowned upon things. Let's just say, I and your kitten-of-a-son have more in common than just terrible dads, our dashing good looks, and the bane of being birthed in this godforsaken city." 

She stopped there and the silence really sunk in. Willis became aware of the drip-dropping of water droplets hitting the ground somewhere, falling from a busted water pipe hanging overhead. He thought about it. Thought long and hard about what Caitlin was telling him. If she was who she claimed to be, then she was the daughter of the man he killed all those years ago to save Jason's life, which meant he had condemned not one, but two children to a life of selling their bodies just to survive the day. That..... was gonna haunt him. But one of those children was working every day to put that behind him, the other was a psychotic bitch. The Murses return once more to threaten his son.

" How did you know Jason is Red Hood?" Willis asked, voice dark, unyielding to any sympathies or regrets as to his part in her life's tragedies. If she hadn't hurt Jason, he might have had some to spare. He might have even said sorry.... or lied and said he was sorry.

Caitlin seemed irritated, ripped off, that he had zilch to say about the great revelation of her identity, but she continued nonetheless.

" I knew the name of the bitch who murdered my sister, she knew the name of the man who shot my father, and one beautiful bright day I discovered she was running an illegal drug trade in Ethiopia. I went looking for the people who ruined my life, ruined _me_. Sadly, I didn't get there before a nice big explosion happened. Remember that? You should, it killed your son, allegedly, his mother, supposedly,"

Willis gagged. " Wait - _what_? Sheila is dead."

" Yes, she is," Caitlin nodded smugly, proud without a second of doubt, " but not because of that little bit of dynamite. Oh, _no, no, no_. I had some big, burly friends with me then, former members of the Red Hood gang who couldn't rest until the people who killed their leader was brought to justice. They helped me sift through the wreckage after Batman collected what was left of your baby and went. Can you believe it?!" She laughed. " That that little cupcake of yours was Robin?!" Caitlin continued on laughing like no one was watching, revealing a glimpse of the untold madness she had hidden so long. 

" Get to the point, bitch. _Sheila_." Willis hated to imagine how that absolute waste of everything that is good and holy such as oxygen had contributed this time. 

" By some miracle, she wasn't dead. Just barely, but not dead. Y'know, Jason took the majority of the blast for _her_? Got the skin melted off his back and suit fused into his raw flesh for a woman who left him to die on more than one occasion?" 

" I know. He's a selfless kid." Willis murmured, all the while thinking that his son was much too selfless sometimes.  

"As I said, she wasn't quite dead and with a bit of _encouragement_ , she was more than ready to tell us all the tidbits about the man who shot Dante Murs. _You_. While she was at it, she told us all about dead, poor little Robin, such as his name, parentage, home, etc.... Then when we were done, we killed her all over again. Much slower."

Willis really shouldn't have struggled not to smile at that part. It was morally wrong but the idea of Sheila dying in the throes of agony was so refreshing after everything she had done. She gave, Jason, the literal only good thing to ever come out of her, to Fischer, then she gave him to Joker, and to top it off, she gave away everything about him to this sick bitch.

" It wasn't hard to figure the rest out. Batman's secret identity as Bruce Wayne, a man I only began to date to learn more about your precious sugar-muffin. Figured I should know everything about the brat who cost my father his life. Who cost _me_ my life."

" Jason didn't cost you anything!" Willis snapped, pulling hard against his binds, chains rattling, muscles quivering from anger. " Your father is the one who tried to kill an unborn child, one who had nothing to do with any of this. I shot that bastard to protect my son and I'd fucking do it again. _Any_ time. _Any_ place."

Caitlyn chewed her lip, biting through the first layers of skin, whether or not she was angry not even a question but more of an obvious statement. 

" I was ready to move on, y'know? After a while, I figured I'd finally let go of the past when there was nothing of it left, your girlfriend _dead_ , your wife _dead_ , your son _dead_ , you gone off to locations unknown. Then a rumour started floating around that Red Hood was the dead Robin, somehow come back to life. I had to find out and he dared - _Jason_ _dared_ , to use the name of my father's gang-! I had to get him, catch him, break him, make him suffer but more importantly, make _you_ suffer. He was alive again, I could finally get my revenge. You two are the reasons I went through everything I did."

" So get on with it. The only thing I'm suffering is your company."

" Oh, I already am. Fancy the idea that you're the reason Jason is going to be dead very soon."

" Oh for fuck's sake. Killing Dante-"

" No. Not that. See, I had to find Jason, so I had every pair of eyes in Gotham, looking for him but he was too damn good at hiding when he wants to. He's practised so I had to do something he would never expect, something he wasn't prepared for, his estranged father's return. It wasn't easy, a few people lost their lives, but I managed to track you down eventually. Whispered to the right people that people were after Jason Todd, you found out, and _voila!_ You'd go find him for me. All I had to do was follow. And now I have you both."

Willis' heart sank and sat still when she revealed that, that he'd been played and the sole reason she ever found Jason. Were it not for him, Jason would be safe, once more. That was a song grown old by how many times it had been sung. Fuck..... _fuck_!  He'd gone and done it again, failed Jason, let him down, not been able to protect him, all over again. The knowledge was torture on its own, made him want to claw the eyes right out of his head, but whatever more Caitlin promised she had planned he deserved, a thousandfold. 

The cold muzzle of something all-too-familiar tapped against his forehead and he glanced up, Caitlin was holding a gun, distinctly one of Jason's for the red lines along the barrel, and smiling like she had won a championship. He didn't know about a championship, but Willis did know she had won. 

" Let's go see Jason, hmm? See if his scrawny life was worth all this?"

*

Up, down, up, down, up, down, that was the nameless rhythm Jason's head was being moved to, hand in his hair, fingers wrapped tight around the locks and pulling out numerous strands, choking but his drugged up and hazy brain didn't register no air going to it. Good for him, he wasn't fully aware of _what_ was choking him, so rigid and filling his throat until it was bursting at the seams. From above him, Baldie laughed and spat out some profanities like they were the only words he was ever taught, pushing Jason's face into his lap and making him take every inch of his cock until saliva ran down it in thick streams. There were sucking sounds like Jason was a starved calf, the involuntary squishing just a side effect of what Jason was quite unknowingly being forced into. He was cold, far too cold and feverish to know what was happening.  He snuffled, whimpered, tried to use his hands to get _it_ out of his mouth, but they were still fastened out of his use behind his back. The insides of his cheeks were cold and dry, not enough moisture to make this painless for either of them, then again, this wasn't for pleasure, it was for the thrill of making Red Hood his bitch, something to hold over him for however long he still lived.

From the sidelines, Fischer watched without a word, observing as casually as if this was a TV screen playing a commercial. What a shame that Jason grew up, he was still as pretty as he ever was, be it now or then as a little child. But he was too old. That once beautiful untarnished canvas he had seen in the child was now a mess of scar and traumas and the unwithering idea that Jason should be put down for his own good. When Caitlyn tracked him down, offered to pay him for what he knew about the kid next door to fill in the blank spaces of her unhealthy obsession with Jason, he'd been obliged and from then on just stuck around because he was genuinely curious, what had his favourite little boy grown into? He had not been expecting him to be Red Hood, to say the very least.   

In one instance, Baldie kept Jason's head down too long, until out of instinct he began struggling and struggling hard. He couldn't breathe and tried to pull back and get the dick out of his mouth, from down his throat, but Baldie gave a cruel, loud bark of laughter and yanked him back in place between his knees by a fistful of hair.

" Oh, Red, much better when you're quiet, aren't you?" He sneered, allowing Jason a breath of air only to keep him conscious. " Could get used to having you like _this_."

Then two hands closed around his neck and he was suffocating again. Jason shook, shuddered, so frozen and nauseous that nothing made sense, not even the sound of the door flying open and loudly banging into the wall.

" _Boss_!" Baldie exclaimed, jumping up suddenly with surprise written in his face, his fast movement landing Jason an accidental blow beneath the chin that saw his teeth clamp shut on his tongue. A blood splatter ensued, Jason's head snapped back and he could do nothing to keep from falling back down to ground level. Laying... it felt good to how tired he was. 

" Wasn't expecting you back so fast-"

" I told you not to touch him!" Caitlin exploded.

" I -" 

_BANG! BANG!_

Two shots, fired out of the blue, the sudden guff of burning gun-powder filling the air and a thud as something it the floor.  Jason would know the sound of his gun being discharged in the middle of a firing squad. Another shot, this one muffled by the bullet striking the ground, and Jason could make out grumbling.

" Damn moron. Disobey _me_ will he..." It was Caitlin, muttering beneath her breath while she stepped over the corpse, gushing blood. How easily she would dispatch one of her followers, for the slightest disobedience, a fitting reminder that she was not a woman to be crossed.

" Oh my god..." Someone gasped and before long, their arms came around Jason, propping his upper body against them and his head lolled onto their shoulder.

" Jason! Jason, _wake_ up," He was ordered by who he could assume was his father. Or at least he hoped it was. Willis shook him but he flopped around with all the backbone of a week-dead fish. He was shivering and leaned into his father's chest, eyelids twitching with the intentions of batting open, only he couldn't.

Willis took Jason's face in his hand, wiped away the trail of blood, tried to wake him with a slap he couldn't put enough strength behind to make effective. The speed of his hitched breath almost made up for Jason's near lack of one.

" C'mon, kid, don't die..."

Jason was whiter than a sheet of bleached paper and there was no warmth left anywhere in him. You could get a cold chill just from touching him. Every inhale was slow, without depth,  rattling around the cavern of his chest. He was conscious just barely, big dark circles encircling his eyes, lips blue, all telltale signs that Willis recognised but did not want to admit.

Grave dust. Jason looked like the corpses of those men who tested it on themselves.

" D - dad-" Jason choked out, limbs covered with goosebumps trembling.

" Shh, stay with me, Jay," That was impossible he knew.

" When I was in Ethiopia, I found what was left of that lovely narcotic you perfected for Sheila. Thought it would worth keeping some." Caitlin said, proud, happy.

 _No, no, no_. This was _bad_. Very bad. Willis set his son down just long enough to yank his jacket off, pulling it over his head and while he did so, the glance he threw to an observing Caitlin revealed another person he hadn't previously seen.

" _You_..." He snarled and Fischer smiled, giving him a small wave from the safety and protection of the gun Caitlin had trained on him. That and the fact that Jason was dying of drug-induced hypothermia the only reasons Willis didn't rip him apart then and there and put the shreds through a mincer.

" Better tend to the boy, neighbour," Fischer dared to say, " he doesn't look too good. Just as cold as all those nights his mommy locked him outside in the hall, left him there for me to play with."

Willis more felt the growl than heard it, rumbling around in the narrow confines of his throat, wanting him to not leave a single piece of Fischer alive, and he wouldn't, but that time would come later.

Willis wrapped the jacket around Jason, pulling it closed at the front, trying to keep him awake, keep him warm, but that was a battle he was losing fast. There was no undoing what this drug would cause, there was no way to slow it down or stop it. He knew that but would not accept it.

He gathered Jason back up into his arms but he was unresponsive to the touch.

" No, Jason, no," Willis whined. " Wake up, Jay, please."  At his plea, his son's eyes opened a crack, dull turquoise clouding over.

" C - cold-" he mumbled, swallowing hard like it took all of his energy just to do that.

" I know, Jason," he pushed a weak, unconvincing smile to reassure his son, but that didn't disguise his overwhelming fear and worry. Jason didn't have long with the drug ravaging his system.

" Just stay with me, okay?"

" Don't make him promise to that, Willis." Caitlin said. " Haven't you made him suffer enough? And now, you get to enjoy the luxury of enjoying the torment of what I did, someone you love, in your arms, dying, and you can't save them. It was your doing that my father died and left me to fend for myself, left me with those garish animals."

She smiled, a devilish, wicked smile that couldn't hold the emotion the expression was designed for. Behind it, there was nothing but bloodlust and the desire to avenge her misfortunes.

" And this is the perfect revenge. He dies, then you follow right after."

*

" Boss said we could keep 'im?" 

" She doesn't care what we do with him. She only wanted Hood." 

" What do you figure she'll do with him?"

" Screw him? Jesus, I dunno, Jorel." 

" You think she really would? I mean, is that really what this is all been about? Seems a little extreme." 

" For that crazy bitch, nothing is too extreme."

Dick came around to two overlapping and distorted voices conversing from above him. He felt the harsh drag of the ground against his back, shoulders burning from the strain of being pulled along by his arms, each wrist captive to a rough burly hand. Head panging, he elicited a small groan, gritting his teeth against the slow steady thump, thump, thumping of the pressure build-up behind his eyes, crusted shut with dried blood.

The motion stopped and there was a scuffle of boots on shifting dirt when one of them turned to look down on him. 

" _Shit_. Deuce, he's awake. Hey," the man leaned down and unceremoniously gave his cheek a duo of gentle slaps. Dick pried his unwilling lids apart to,

" Nightwing, wakey, wakey, beautiful."  The man, Jorel, sneered through his crooked pointed teeth, plated with silver gilding. 

" Leave him alone, man. Batman's enemies will pay top dollar for him so the least you could do is stop poking him - _argh_ -!" 

Suddenly, they both dropped Dick with a thud when something unfurled above them like the wings of a bird of prey and with the familiar slams of fists into flesh and swish of batarangs carving through the air, both were senseless, pinned to the wall by the hoods of their sweatshirts. 

Stomp, stomp, stomp, heavy footfalls lead to Dick and two fingers were pressed against his neck, checking for a  pulse. Dick coughed raggedly and whined out a complaint of pain, but pushed himself to sit up and rub at his eyes with the back of his gloved hand. Guess he was incredibly lucky Batman was on patrol right here, right at this time, but Dick chose to overlook the fact that he was almost certainly following his tracking device after he was out too long without checking in or answering to calls. 

" Dick, are you-?" Bruce began in his low gravelly bat-voice.

" Fine," he blinked back drowsiness and the dancing dots of colour. Bruce shifted and his hand slid into Dick's hair, parting the dark locks to examine the bloody abrasion he got when Jason's apartment was blown up.... _Jason_! That was when everything that happened zapped back into his recollection.

" B," Dick turned to him, urgent, dismissing his own injuries and head wound, " it's Jason. He's caught, he needs help. _Now_."

Bruce's demeanour changed from concerned to something dark and instantly protective. He straightened his bent knees and stood, offering his hand to Dick.

" Who was it?" He demanded when pulling his eldest up and slinging his arm over his shoulders, beginning to walk him back towards the Batmobile, a few blocks down. Located on the side of his gauntlet, he pressed the button that summoned the vehicle to them so as to save Dick that bit of travel in his wounded state.

" Uh, I - I dunno. A bunch of thugs came outta nowhere and tossed a grenade through the window. Jay - Jason was with his - _Bruce_ , did you know his dad isn't d-"

" Yes." He grunted. " I know. Willis Todd is alive and back in Gotham."

" _Right_." Dick nodded, fogginess in his brain clearing and starting to focus.

" Of course you knew."

Bruce ignored the tinge of bitterness behind that as the Batmobile pulled up and he opened the door for Dick. Dick unlatched himself from his father's side and got in without word, caught by rare self-righteousness over not being let in the loop. You could have trusted me, he thought.

When soon they were driving back towards the cave, Bruce asked,

" Did _he_ do anything that aided in Jason's capture?"

Dick went on the assumption that the accusationally spat out pronoun was an implication to Willis.

" No, he didn't. Bruce.. Jason, he cares about him, he trusts him."

" I know." Bruce grunted out the side of his mouth, gaze hard set on the road ahead.

" He's mislead."

Dick blew out his cheeks at such a stubborn, close-minded response, but what should he have expected?

" One of you is. Jason isn't stupid, B. Granted its weird Willis has been gone this long and is back now, but you need to trust that Jay knows what he's doing with his dad."

" How can I? Jason is - Jason is...." He tried but failed to say, vocabulary drying up as the speed of a drop of water in death valley.

" I get it, Bruce. He's your kid, he's my brother, but if we don't trust that he can make the right decisions - if we constantly treat him like a charity case in need of 24-hour protection, we're the ones pushing him away. You gotta stop treating him like a possession, he's your son, but he's also Willis' so accept that Jay wants some kind of a relationship with his biological dad." 

Bruce sighed. Where in the hell did Dick get his wisdom from? Certainly not him. True or not, what Dick said had some truth to it. He knew the way he had been treating Jason of late was all wrong, but the thought of losing him all over again... This time to a threat no parent expected when taking in an _orphan_. Except Jason wasn't an orphan apparently and Bruce couldn't get over the crippling fear Willis was going to harm him. Or take him away. The possibility made Bruce react the way you would if someone was breaking into your house and stealing away your possessions, rough and hostile. But Jason wasn't an object or possession.

" I saw the guy, Willis, granted we didn't speak much but if it sets your mind at ease, he didn't seem like he was out to hurt Jay."

" If he had nothing to do with this, who took Jason?"

" I don't know." Dick admitted, hopeless, scared for his brother. The guys who came, they weren't playing house, they meant business and whoever their employer was, they were a dangerous person with an unhealthy desire to capture Jason. It could be business related, but this felt personal. He did hope to god that he was right and Willis had nothing to do with this, because being handed over to the enemy by a parent he trusted a second time would _break_ Jason. Destroy him.

Quietly sighing, Dick turned to look out of the window at Gotham's twinkling streetlights.

Where did they take his little wing and what were they going to do to him? He worst possibilities all swam laps around his mind.

They needed to find Jason and now.

*

Caitlin felt elation fluttering in her chest like a caged bird, longing for freedom. She tasted the sweet savoury tingle of victory on her tongue when finally she would get her revenge for all she had to endure at the hands of this godforsaken family. She wanted Willis to know what it was like to watch someone he loved die without being able to save them, just like she had. She wanted Jason to die simply because his conception meant her life was unravelled by force. And she wanted to watch, laugh, grow a smile from their suffering.

She glanced over to Fischer, spectating idly, and thought on how perfect it was that she had managed to find him to rub in Willis' face all his life's biggest mistakes while simultaneously ripping away the sole reason he lived it. Fischer was a disgusting paedophile, one akin to many she had dealt with on her time living on Gotham's streets, and ahe would do away with him similar to Willis and Jason come time. None deserved anything more.

A dry breathless string of coughs from Jason pushed a smile onto her lips and his father's futile efforts to battle back his son's soon to be fatal hypothermia was just too funny. Seeing him so cold felt good, fitting that he should feel exactly the way she did on the countless nights she spent under the open sky, sleeping in a park or street, cold, lacking for hope. An ideal way for him to die, by his father's indirect hand. He made the drug that was killing him, Willis also put into motion the events that lead up to this scenario. Indirectly, he killed his precious child a second time. She could only hope Willis still thought Jason's life was worth everything he had endured to maintain it.

It was hilarious the more you thought about it, that Caitlin wouldn't know all she needed to about Jason were it not from what she learned from his adoptive father, Bruce. From what little he told, she pieced together a lot.

So if you thought about it, Willis _and_ Bruce both pulled the trigger that launched a bullet into Jason's skull. _Again_.

She chuckled under her breath. Now _that_ was funny!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Off topic, but I had a mortifying nightmare where my family found and read my fanfiction. Just thought you should know I'm not proud of what I do.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prepare for a montage of Bruce cutting people off.

_The sun had barely risen, and he just finished his sixteen-hour shift. He was exhausted._

" _Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" A sudden weight cannonballed onto Willis, damn near knocking the wind out of him, bouncing off him and landing somewhere into the crumpled up tangle of sheets and blankets with an_ _ **oof**_ _. It was torturous to pry his lids open and deprive himself of much-needed sleep even more than his work already did, but the blow stung and fabric rustled as Jason crawled across the bed towards him. Agonising as being awake was, Willis watched the child through a narrowed gaze, one per cent of his brain turned on as he pillowed his head on his arm. The groan was hard to help._

_" Daddy," Jason's big bright eyes and milk-toothy smile popped up in his face, barely five inches away, oddly potent whiff of toothpaste emanating off his pale blue pyjamas. He extended his small hand and it found Willis' shoulder, giving him a little shake_

_" Wake up, daddy." He urged, so soft and sweet that Willis' exhausted self couldn't find displeasure in his presence. Wary and weak though it was, Willis returned the smile, corner of his lip tugged upward ever so slightly as Jason clambered right next to him and ducked under the warmth of his arm, settling there for only seconds before squirming around and looking up at him._

_" D-"_

_"_ **_Shh_ ** _." Willis pretty much begged, chin rested on the top of his son's head, black curls silken. His hand cupped the back of Jason's head, stroking down, hoping he could lull the boy to sleep. No such luck._ **_Never_ ** _such luck._

_" C'mon, daddy," Smiling, always smiling, Jason went like he was playing the best game of his life, gently slapping Willis' cheek in hopes of waking him so he could have a playmate._

_" Wake up."_

 

" Wake up, Jay!" Limp, frozen in his arms, Willis shook his son violently, pleading with him to just bat open his eyes. Every bit of warmth in him had become all-too-fleeting and despite anything Willis could do, Jason's pulse was hidden too well beneath his blueing flesh to be felt, if it was there anymore.

" Jason, _please_...." He whispered, falling to deaf ears, dampness shifting in his eyes because this could not, _could not_ , be happening all over again. A man's child wasn't supposed to die before him even once, much less twice. Not for the series of brain-dead mistakes Willis had made.

He propped Jason up higher against his shoulder, Jason's head falling to one side and slumping against him with a broken, near inaudible breath that could do nought so as not to shudder. For a few seconds his lashes fluttered, a glimpse of the dulling colour in his irises, then they fell shut once more.

" ... _Jay_.." That was a choked whine of sheerly begging nature.

*

" He _destroyed_ it?" Bruce's brows lowered when he heard the fate of Jason's tracking device, wrinkles forming across his forehead. Standing to his side, Dick nodded, somewhat apologetic as Jason wouldn't have known of its existence were it not for him. If the device were still intact, they would have found Jason and his father by now.

Sighing, carding his fingers through his hair, Bruce quickly got to work pulling up security feed from outside and in Jason's safe house via hacking into his hidden cameras. Instantaneously, he was handed visuals as to the grenade thrown through the window, courtesy of the one camera that somehow survived the blast, and he watched with bile building beneath his tongue when Jason was hurled violently to the ground  
His helmet cracked, and Bruce knew from experience that metal was hard to break through, much more so to _shatter_. Jason didn't get up, Dick was soon thrown right after him, and to Bruce's surprise, Willis did what the hands closing fast around him allowed to help his son, but before he could, someone whipped him across the face with the butt of a handgun. It didn't look like he had anything to do with this.... Bruce didn't recall exactly when he started hoping Willis was responsible, nor could he comprehend how a thought so self-serving was conceived in his mind. Yes, it best served him if this was all Willis' doing, but it would _annihilate_ Jason in every sense of the word.

He needed to stop thinking about what _he_ wanted, and for once put Jason's wellbeing first.

From the angle of the camera's lens, Bruce struggled not at all to catch a glimpse of the van's registration, lacking only two digits, and from there it was a cakewalk to locate the vehicle, at Gotham bay. Whoever had done this, it was a rush job on the last hundred-yard dash to completion, as if they were so anxious to get their hands on the Hood, they were willing to finally throw precautions to the winds.

It was daunting to imagine what such an impatient foe had in store for Jason. Very daunting indeed. He needed to get there yesterday fast.

The moment he had the exact location, Bruce was pulling his cowl on, computer growing distant behind as he speed-walked with purpose towards the Batmobile, cape billowing behind, just above ground level.

" I'll come with you, B." Dick announced loudly, insistently, jogging to keep up. Bruce didn't stop and without glancing over at him with his second head injury that week, said,

" _No_. You were injured. Stay here, monitor comms." Were it up to him, he would be gone by now, but Dick wasn't letting him go that easy.

" No, Bruce. I'm coming. I - I can't trust you," Dick started and lost his backbone somewhere through that sentence, his breath wavering when Bruce finally did face him, perhaps realising what he just said. Bruce arched a brow and Dick regained his courage, straightening his back and composure, staring Bruce in the eyes dead on.

" I can't trust you not to make it worse."

" Dick, we don't have time for this-"

" Think about what happened last time you were alone with Willis and Jay-"

" - _Jason_ doesn't have time for this."

Dick's hands almost shot up and tore out chunks of his hair in frustration at the constant interrupting, which was just Bruce not wanting to hear him out.

" Would you fucking _listen_ to me? I don't trust you not to hurt Jason or his dad _again_."

Bruce sighed, lacking for patience while God knows what was being done to Jason.

" I won't harm anyone I don't have to."

Dick's gaze attenuated to slivers, arms folded over his crest, fingers mining bruises into his biceps. His muscles were tense, like he was knowingly playing with fire, he pressed,

" Did you _have to_ last time?"

To match Dick's expression, Bruce took his turn to narrow his eyes, something that no longer bore a drastic effect on Dick.

Nothing more was said, Dick knew it was because Bruce had no comeback and if he wasn't currently fearing for his baby brother's life, he would have taken pleasure in winning the argument and as a bonus, leaving his mentor speechless.

Silently, Dick raised his domino to his face and smoothened down the edges, spirit gum fusing his skin and the mask into one and the same. He wasn't so badly hurt that he couldn't supervise Bruce while saving Jason. Bruce knew one way or another, Dick would in fact, follow.

" Let's go."

*

" The boy is pretty as he ever was. Almost hard to picture those nasty beatings that clown gave him, isn't it?" Fischer - always the smug son-of-a-bitch - loomed over them and had Willis not been holding Jason so close to himself, he would have smacked the lips off that pedo's face. He glared bloody murder up at him as his arms instinctively tightened around his son's lifeless body.

" Fuck off, Fischer." Willis ordered, defensive of Jason despite being inept to help him. His fingers discreetly grazed over Jason's midriff and his holsters, but as luck would have it, his guns had been removed. Shame though, a hole between Fischer's eyes would have suited him well.

" We're not all as good at the vanishing act, I'm afraid, neighbour." He taunted, his insufferable smile one that was all too familiar. Caitlin watched from afar, dangling what was without question, Jason's 9mm from her hand. This was all a game of even-Steven to her. After she was done, she would likely call it quits on her criminal empire.

She was for lack of a better description, insane and obsessed with righting wrongs never done to her.

" Vanishing act, huh, Fisch?" Willis asked him, pinning Jason all the more tightly to himself to hide the fact that he was searching him for anything to use. There's not a snowball's chance in hell that Caitlin found every member of Jason's concealed armoury. The pads of his fingers went over the outlines of something Jason had hidden carefully on the inner lining of his utility belt. It was small, barely noticeable, a cylindrical object with a needle-sharp point. Willis didn't really know for sure what it was, but if he had to guess, he would say it was intended for an emergency tracheotomy. That's not what he intended to do, however. Carefully, so _carefully_ , he began sliding it out of its roost and into his hand, millimetre by millimetre. Jason shifted, groaned weakly, and Willis shushed him like he was five.

" Shhh. It's okay, Jason, it's gonna be okay." He assured his son, the hand cupping the back of Jason's head beginning to stroke his hair to soothe him. Jason whimpered out something as quiet as it was incoherent.

" Don't lie to him." Fischer said, sweeping his hand in motion to Jason. " Look at him." In response, Willis' gaze darted over Jason's blueing grey skin, riddled with goosebumps, cold to the touch, before shooting straight back up and locking head on with Fischer's with terrifying intent.

" Believe me, by the end of the night, he'll be in the best shape outta all of us," Willis promised, practically swore, finally succeeding in slipping the stick of metal out and wrapping his hand around it, yet to be noticed.

" Oh? That's a big promise there, neighbour, and we both know you're not too good at keeping those."

" Nope. 'M not." Willis admitted with a tilt of his head, watching with suspense building in his chest as Fischer got closer and closer and _cockier_ with every word he got in.

" But I'm good at vanishing tricks."

" Good luck pulling one this time." Fischer may as well be on top of them by now so close was he, oblivious and too sure of himself. The man had gotten away with everything he had ever done. He didn't see how that could change. Willis moved Jason slightly and turned the object, point upward, still remaining concealed. For now.

" I appreciate the vote of confidence." Willis smiled, points of his teeth flashing like the maw of a predatory animal with a taste for murder. The cylindrical metal trembled.

" You really wanna see how well I pull the disappearing trick?"

Rolling his eyes, Fischer clicked his tongue with a berating expression, clearly thinking 'what an idiot'. And maybe he was. Willis wouldn't deny the possibility.

" Indulge me-" Fischer made the mistake of leaning forward when he made to finish his sentence, enough so for Willis to get his fist around a handful of his shirt - he plunged the metal up simultaneously to yanking Fischer down onto it with a gasp of surprise then pain.

Blood sprayed and bathed everything in it.

Fischer stumbled back, shock wide in his eyes, brain yet to catch up with what just happened. His hands grasped at the object now sticking out of his neck, embedded in his jugular, the puncture a doorway for the contents of his veins to taint the earth. An unearthly gurgling and bubbled of red came in rasps and pulps, thick and filled with struggle.

Willis was too occupied with how satisfactory it was to see Fischer stumble backwards over Baldie's ever-present corpse and join it on the ground, twitching, writhing, to notice Caitlin until he heard the click and had the gun shoved at him.

He made no effort to meet her crazed blue eyes, no fear, tenderly wiping droplets of red from his son's face with his thumb while he himself was drenched in the sticky coppery stuff. The sounds of Fischer choking on his own tainted blood were unmissable in the background.

" That was either very dumb, or very bold. I can't decide which." Caitlin said, apparently no care in the world to what he just did outside of her musings. For all her many faults, Willis hadn't pegged her to be pro-pedo. She probably would have killed Fischer when she was done anyways.

" I don't know what it was either, " Willis admitted, well aware of her aim being trained on his head while he rearranged Jason's tangled up hair.

" But I promised that bastard I would kill him, and if you get what you want tonight, then this was my last chance."

" Trust me, dear," Caitlin said, so convinced her voice wavered, " I'll get what I deserve tonight."

" Won't we all?" He asked with a bittersweet smile that bore no sweetness to it. He couldn't help Jason. He couldn't help his child. God, what was he gonna do? What could he do? He couldn't help but be transfixed by the visible lack in Jason's chest rising and falling.

" Hm." Caitlin cocked her head, narrowing her blue stare in thought. " In another life, you may have been a good parent, not that I think that will console you in the least."

Ignoring her, Willis' trembling fingers studied Jason's neck and found no pulse. _No_... Pulse. Panicking, he searched in desperation for the faint throb of life that had persisted to remain present for this long, but Jason was so... So deathly still. Fuck no. Please no.

Caitlin chuckled the way a person only could when they had won.

Willis felt like he was choking on nothing, a vortex tore open in him and ripped everything into it, and he let his eyes fall shut heavily, tears already forming and he could tell Caitlin's finger tightened on the trigger.

But he didn't care. All he cared about was Jason and he was... He was....

*

Bruce and Dick had a curious dynamic that hadn't much changed since his Robin-days. They were without question, individuals, two separate beings with separate lives, yet despite all that, in the field, they were a unit with only one focus, and today that focus was Jason. They needed no communication when bursting through the skylight after a quick survey deemed it safe. No plan or mapped course of action and tonight, improvision was their mistress.

Speaking of mistresses, Bruce landed heavily yet with agility into the sea of broken glass sprayed across the ground, ready to put his fist through the face of the man who had done all this, but standing there over Jason and his father was no man. It was a woman. With a gun. A woman with a gun who took a second to register through his mind.

How. The actual hell. Was his girlfriend here?.... It was no case of wrong place, wrong time. She had the gun pointed at them, this was her doing. There were two other bodies on the ground, sprawled out, _shot_.

Bruce would figure out the how's and whys later and there would be a lot of that to do. Dick less than a millisecond behind him, Caitlin barely registered what was at play before Dick had sent the gun flying from her hand with a powerful, well-placed kick and Bruce had her tackled on the ground.

" Darling is that you-?!" Caitlin screeched like a maddened banshee, both delighted and angered beyond the descriptive capabilities of the human tongue. She struggled against him and he tightened his hold, zip-tieing her wrists while he grit his teeth. So Caitlin did know his identity? Before or after abducting Jason? How damn premeditated was this thing? Wh-

" Here to save your boy? Too late!" Caitlin laughed from beneath him, shaking with the force of her hysteria. Bruce... He had never seen even hints that she had this Joker-esque side to her. What the fuck?

" B-! Get over here!" Dick yelled to him from over his shoulder, knelt by Jason, Jason who remained on the ground, cradled by his father.

" What happened to him?" Dick demanded, urgent, locking eyes with Willis and didn't miss how despaired and torn up his were. There were fresh trails of tears on the sides of his face.

" H - uh - he - there was a drug." Willis stammered, fidgeting with his arms around his son and Dick wondered how on earth they could pry Jason from him long enough to be of help. Jason looked frozen but in a July evening's heat, was that even possible? Milky-blue complexion, the broken blood vessels on his skin. It didn't look like anything Dick knew outside of hypothermia and Willis said a _drug_ did this? What?

" Let me see him." Dick insisted, already making to pull Jason over to himself when he heard Bruce's sped up steps and saw how rabid-fast Willis' reaction to him was. He went from petrified parent to angry attack dog. He let go of Jason however and Dick paid no heed to them at the moment. He really hoped they could put aside their lust for each other's blood at least now.

" What did you do to him?" Bruce demanded through a cage of clenched teeth. Biased as he ever was, he grabbed Willis by the front of his shirt, easily hoisting him off the ground and glaring daggers into his face without ever inquiring more. He just couldn't look past what he kept thinking. Willis glowered right back at him fearlessly however high he may be. It would be a lie if he said the current hold wasn't choking him somewhat.

But he really, _really_ didn't like Batman or Bruce fucking Wayne.

" I _didn't_ fucking hurt him." Willis spat. " It was that crazy bitch of yours an-"

" Stop it, you two!" Short temper no secret, Dick snapped, grabbing both their attention.

" He's not breathing." Dick was already applying compressions to his brother's bare chest when he said that and managed to, for now, prioritise that impossible set of men. He couldn't help but roll his eyes while pumping life back into Jason when with a _thud_ , Bruce dropped Willis and they were both over within an instant. They knelt down beside them.

" What's wrong with him?" Bruce took over from Dick, now worried more than anything. How did he not notice at first how bad Jason was? His son looked less than an inch from death's door. One hand over the other, he felt Jason's ribs shifting under the thrusts and took care not to break any. It would be so easy a mistake to make.

" It's a drug." Willis cut in before Dick could reply and Dick hoped that meant these two idiots could work together so long as Jason's life depended on it.

" It's called grave dust. It severely tampers with the human body's ability to regulate its own temperature."

Bruce raised his head from blowing air into Jason's lungs. " What? Wh-?"

Bruce didn't get those last words out and a final slam, Jason gasped, coughed, but there was no eyes flying open or quick regaining of consciousness. He whimpered and shivers wracked his entire body. Dick had never seen anyone look so cold. He barely resisted the overwhelming urge to envelop Jason in an attempt to keep him warm, but that would do nothing when he was freezing from the inside out.

" D - _dad_ -" Jason choked, trying to get his eyes open but managing only to part his lashes. He fidgeted with his quivering hands.

" Here, Jay." Bruce and Willis both reacted in synchrony and snapped a leer at the other. When the situation was less dire, Dick intended to tell them they were like divorcees in a custody battle.

Relapsing into delirium, Jason continued to shake and Bruce ripped his cape off, sliding his arm behind his son's back and hoisting him off the ground enough to cover him with the garment, which was really of little help. He kept Jason against his shoulder, this time looking to Willis instead of giving him a bad-tempered glunch.

" You know about this drug?" He asked urgently, _fast_ , not wanting to acknowledge how he needed Jason's father's help due to lack of knowledge concerning this narcotic. He felt unprepared. Failed.

Willis nodded, grim. " More than anyone currently alive. The effects can't be reversed."

" They have to be."

" They _can't_." Willis was clearly not saying words he wanted to be true. " There's no cure once it gets this bad. We need to try something el-"

" Here, " Dick said, seconds before he sensed another argument coming on, and took Jason's arm, indicating to a pin-prick on the inside of his elbow, nestled in a mush of bruises.

" It's intravenous. If there's no cure, can we filter it?"

Willis pinched the bridge of his nose hard enough to see silvery stars.

" You mean-"

" That could work, Nightwing," Bruce said, mind circulating and already in overdrive. He went over everything in seconds.

"It's in his blood. If we can filter it clean, we can save him."

" And how do we do that?" Willis asked, anxiousness over Jason unable to hide his loathing for the Bat. At least it was likeminded.

" We should be able to find what we need here. All we need is a tube, a couple IVs and-" In all his haste to spit out the solution, Bruce overlooked the one key thing they needed and did not _have_.

" Neither of us is a match." Crestfallen, he said to Dick, who bit down on his own lip, hands around Jason's.

Willis' gaze snatched from one to the other, head turning almost cartoonishly.

" Are you talking blood types?" He inquired despite not really needing confirmation.

" I'm compatible with Jason."

" _Really_?" Dick's voice and eyes allowed in a trace of hopefulness.

" Yes. A-"

" You're _sure_?" Bruce demanded, his distaste obvious as the day was long. He shifted Jason in his arms, resting his head on his shoulder.

" You really think I don't know my baby's blood type?" Willis' teeth were bared a little, but enough to remind everyone just where Jason had inherited his ability for facial expressions. His muscles had tensed, nerves drawn taut, and it was unmistakable how he wanted Jason back to himself and away from the Bat. But he was all too aware they had to work together here.

" How old is he?" Bruce suddenly wanted to know, like they were playing the Jason Todd trivia and the winner gets to be the one-and-only dad.

" Twen-"

" For fuck's sake!" Dick exclaimed, already returning from Caitlin's sick little makeshift operation room with a length of tube and the rest of the necessary equipment. _When had he even gotten up..?_

Dick scowled at them both in turn and equally, expression fierce domino aside.

" Your son-" he gestured between them, "- both _your's son_ , is dying at your feet, and all you can fucking do is bicker? Do that later, when Jason is okay. _Okay_?"

That wasn't a question, that was a statement, an order, and both men remembered their priorities enough to listen. Sighing in annoyance, Dick fell heavily onto his knees beside Jason and began unwinding the tube.

" We're gonna hook you two up and filter his blood through your system. Hopefully, that will work." Dick glanced up at Willis, a single brow arched.

" You're sure you're compatible?"

" _Yes_. He's A negative, same as me." Willis confirmed, already working up the sleeves of his shirt after a long history with needles had taught him how this worked.

" Have you taken any drugs recently? Anything that can mess Jason up?" Dick - with his teeth - popped the cap of an IV needle and connected it to one end of the tube, doing the same with the remaining three.

" No. Nothing for the past months." He sensed Bruce's scepticism when he said that from where he held Jason's consciousless body, but perhaps he said nothing because right now, he had to trust Willis or Jason would die, no question.

While Dick pushed needle points into the insides of both Willis' elbows and Caitlin was cursing them from where she was bound, Bruce turned Jason slightly and gazed down at his face, his colourless, pained face with the darkness around his eyes and broken blood vessels bunched up on his cheeks. He looked bad. He looked so fucking _bad_.

But right now, he reminded Bruce of the way Jason always slept - for instance, at his apartment before all this fiasco was given birth. Jason _always_ appeared to be the wounded little birdy whenever not awake. Why had it taken this long to notice?

Hastily running his tongue along his chapped lower lip, Bruce adjusted Jason and without Dick or Willis watching, kissed him lightly, quickly, on the forehead.

" I'm sorry." He murmured inaudibly into Jason's hair, breathing him in, him along with the blood and cold sweat and oddly enough.... What was unmistakably Caitlin's signature cinnamon perfume. All over him. Bruce lifted his stare off Jason enough to vengefully fix it on that _damn woman_ across the room. She either didn't realise or didn't care, and proceeded to stare into the dirt with a look of disbelief at her failure. Under her breath, she was mumbling something too quiet to hear.

Bruce spotted the smear of dusty rose lipstick on the corner of Jason's mouth and wanted to murder Caitlin Mears.

 _Breathe... Just breathe. You can't.._..

One arm behind Jason's back, Bruce slid his other beneath his knees and picked Jason up off the ground, bridal style. It could have been easier. Jason certainly wasn't what you could refer to as small, but Bruce didn't feel the strain in his muscles as he lumbered over to the other two, grunting beneath his breath when he again kneeled after the unnecessary steps he took. Bruce rested Jason's head in his lap after setting him back down and adjusted the cape around him tighter, but loosened the folds around his arms, which Dick would very soon need direct access to.

From the corner of his eyes, Bruce watched in secret as Dick briefed Willis over the very real danger that if this didn't work, it was likely the GD would - having been granted access into Willis' system - do to him what it had to Jason. Bruce expected him to back out when hearing that or at least look less willing, but he gave Dick an 'I don't care' glare and told him to hurry up.

Bruce was silently pleased with that response. He didn't like Willis one bit and knew that was mutual, but willingly, _knowingly_ , risking his life for _their_ son didn't paint a worse picture of him than the one Bruce had already had. It improved it a bit.

While this display showed once and for all that Willis truly hadn't returned to Gotham to harm Jason, Bruce now pondered why the hell Caitlin had done all of this. This wasn't some act of vengeance towards Bruce or even Batman or Red Hood, this was done with Jason in mind.

Bruce came out of his mental ramblings when he noticed Dick had finished, connecting a freeway of tubes from Willis' arms to Jason's, and they would serve well to circulate blood through them.

" Okay, you ready?" Dick asked Willis, holding in his hand the switch that would begin the flow. Willis glanced at Jason, so rapidly fading, and nodded yes without hesitating.

" Keep still." Dick instructed, flipped the switch, and watched a stream of red instantly fill the tube's inner linings and snake down it. Bruce watched too. And Willis. They all watched like numbers ticking to the countdown on a detonator when Jason's blood fast but seemingly slowly entered Willis' veins and vice versa. Near instantly Willis shivered, audible in his breath, and Dick frowned at him.

" You okay?"

Willis nodded, nipping on his lower lip. "Yeah, bit cold is all." And cold certainly was the case. It started as a chilly tingly sensation at first but quickly became a tremor-inducing iciness that left much to be desired.

This was for Jason.

He winced when sharp electric spikes of pain started zipping through his muscles, the feeling of his son's blood moving through his veins so odd that he couldn't quite picture such a predicament even while it was happening.

It made him think. Think that, before Jason was born, there was Sheila and himself. Then there, all of a sudden, was Jason. A drunken product of two people who hated each other with a burning passion. He _and Sheila_ were responsible for Jason's conception. Jason was 50% of each parent's genetics.... His blood type may have been inherited from his father, but that still made if part Sheila's life fluid.... _Disgusting_ , but that wasn't Jason's fault.

 _What the fuck am I even thinking about?_ Willis shook out of his head a train of bizarre thoughts he could only blame on the drug. It must be making his brain conceive such utter nonsense.

Willis then realised someone was talking to him. That young guy. Nightwing. Dick Grayson.

" Hm?" He lifted his head from where the cables had transfixed him, feeling drowsy and somewhat detached. Grave dust took almost instantaneous effect he was now recalling.

" Are you alright?" Dick Grayson pressed, like he had asked it a few times already and Willis had only _now_ heard.

" You're really pale."

" Mmh." Willis agreed with a nod, swallowing down repulsion like hot coals. " 'M fine. Nausea is a... A side effect." He said in between trembling from the cold. Goddamn Sheila and her fucking grave dust. If she weren't dead already....

Willis sensed more than saw Batman - _Bruce Wayne_ _(because who wasn't a fucking vigilante superhero nowadays?)_ heavy gaze, saturated in doubts and thoughts, resting on him and he allowed himself to interlock with it, expectant of he next jibe or accusation.

" What?" He blankly demanded, not bothering to ignore the look. Bruce Wayne seemed to take a moment to register being noticed. When he did, he just shifted the hands he had on Jason and to Willis' surprise, resumed stroking his - _their_ , son's hair out of his face.

" I can feel him getting a bit warmer." Bruce said. " I think it's working."

Nodding again, Willis bit his lip against another bout of sickness but managed to say,

" Good."

" _Mmhm_.." No matter where their heads were, that stuporous murmur from Jason snatched up everyone's attention straight back to him.

" Little Wing?" Dick urged a reply as Jason's facial muscles twitched and his eyelids became less heavily held down. He groaned and swatted at the needle in his arm, the dull prick of the point a discomfort, but Bruce enveloped Jason's hand in his own, disallowing him to pull the thing out.

" _Jason_ ," Willis tried saying but in doing so, almost threw up. He took a deep breath to steady his stomach and shut his eyes against the fact that he _knew_ the other two had their sights fixed on him. He'd never been one to like being stared at. Especially so blatantly.

" Is he okay?" Willis asked when he again withdrew from within himself.

Bruce felt Jason's forehead then his pulse through his wrist, giving a tip of his head _yes_.

Ten minutes, or perhaps even twenty, went by before Jason batted his lashes apart a fraction, a sliver of dull turquoise colour and blankly stared at the wall, tongue sliding slowly over his lips, swallowing heavily. His fingers twitched. So did his arm. He looked lethargic. _Tired_.

" Jason." They all must have said at once. No one knew exactly who said it first. Dick leaned in close and snapped his fingers half an inch from Jason's face, drawing his sluggish to himself. Dick smiled when Jason was drowsily looking at him, smiling such a pretty relieved white smile.

" Hey, Jay." He said, the great sense of relief in his voice not one that was easy to miss. Jason grumbled something insensible and swallowed again, gaze rolling steadily across the room as his brain slowly adjusted to being awake, working all the kinks out before normal function could resume.

When Jason had in his own right, surveyed the room and all the people in it without properly processing any of it, he gave Dick his best exhausted glare.

"... Fuck are you lookin' at?" Jason muttered and only incited a wider grin from his brother, which worsened his half-assed scowl.

Then he noticed the duo of tubes leading from him to his father, pumping blood, circulating it through Willis and back into him.

" Wh... Hat th - _ff_ uck?"

And then Willis being there and Bruce holding him actually made it to the default registry in his brain.

" Dad - _zzz_...."  He observed slowly, slightly wincing from the fading cold and persisting sparks of pain.

" Fuck.... What ha... _Hh-_ "

" Long story, Jay. We'll fill you in, in a mo'." Dick said, taking note of how utterly worn out Jason actually was.

" How do you feel, Jay?" Willis asked, pushing his best expression on but Jason could see the struggle and knew it was because of the damn grave dust currently sliding its way through them. He felt guilty.

" 'M... don't feel so good." He confessed arduously and suddenly remembered it was Bruce's lap he was sprawled out on. _Bruce's_. After the massive ways Jason had pissed him off this past week... He didn't know why, but he expected a rant coupled with a few blows for good measure coming his way.

Jason attempted to pull his arms under himself and remove himself from Bruce's hold, but the slightest movement and he pulled too hard on the IV, hurting not only himself, but by the hiss through Willis' teeth, his father as well.

" Get these off." Jason ordered no one in particular, sitting up with Bruce's help and an arm behind his back that he did not appreciate. Of course, Bruce was all touchy-feely-lovey-dovey now that Willis was present and he had an ownership to get straight.

" Not yet, Jason." Dick said, or did he insist? Either way, Jason knew what he wanted and he wanted some space between him and Bruce. At least until the flames died down because close-handed experience with death or not, he couldn't be forgiven just yet for his insubordination. Give it a few months of no talking for it to blow over.

" All the drug may not be gone yet, Jason." Willis said past his own nausea and how cold he was, his voice a comforting presence that's effect surprised Jason. So he was now the type to feel safer in the company of a parent? Fuck, he was going soft like Goldie.

" You gotta stay wired up a bit longer, just to make sure you're good." The record striking legend of a non-explainer aka his daddy-dearest _explaining_ something to Jason? Jesus Christ, had he missed the plot here?

" I don't care." Jason persisted, shrugging his shoulders in a way that made Bruce's hand fall off his back. He felt the black eyes of his former mentor bore into him and couldn't tell what that emotion was. It didn't feel like anger or disapproval, but coming from Bruce, it was too unfamiliar to name.

" I want them out, _now_."

" Quit being so damn stubborn, Jason." Finally speaking up, Bruce told him in his trademark gruff, stern imitation of a voice.

" Take them out or _I_ will."

The declaration had Dick nip down on his lip in confliction but a nod from Bruce and he was removing the tubes yesterday fast. With Bruce's agreement of course what Jason wanted was suddenly valid. Jason wasn't going to yank them out, obviously, he didn't want to hurt Willis if he did it, but the implication was there. Implication or was it a threat?

While Dick did that and Bruce sat without a word, probably ranting mentally about his stupid second eldest, Jason noticed Willis watching him and not for the first time that hour, he did not recognise the emotion he was seeing.

" What, dad?" Jason asked and took menial pleasure in the fact that the word 'dad' made Bruce stiffen, but on a side note he really hoped it didn't make him jealous enough to do Willis' ribs in again.

" Nothin', kiddo. I'm just glad you're okay." Willis said and smiled when he did, though faintly, weakly, the effects of the drug not yet cleared.

" You scared m - _us_."

Jason very much doubted that was the case when it came to _all_ of them but didn't say anything other than a mumbled apology of sorts for letting them down by not dying.

" Jason," Bruce sighed after what seemed like an eternity of no comments, and this time, Jason was the one who grew stiff, not sure what was coming but it sure as hell felt foreboding.

" About what happened..." _Specifically what?_

" I'm.." _You're_ _ **what**_ _ **?**_

" I'm sorry." Jason's heart froze to a halt in the hollows of his chest. The hell?

" Br - Bruce, what are you talking about?" Jason stammered because indeed, he did not know. Bruce sounded.... _Genuine_. Genuinely apologetic, that is. But why? Jason was the one who had fucked up and gotten captured, disobeyed, acted out. He's the one who should be begging for reconciliation he would never get.

" Maybe not bring this all on 'im right now, Wayne?" Willis suggested and much to his son's utter shock, didn't get his head chewed off by Bruce for daring to input his POV.

" The kid almost died two seconds ago. Let him catch his breath before we start on who did what an' how sorry they are."

With a small inelastic nod, Bruce agreed and that's when Jason knew it. He was dead. Or hallucinating. Or dead _and_ hallucinating. Either way, something major was wrong with this picture where Bruce admitted to his mistakes, apologised, and hadn't called him out on being the family disgrace yet. Maybe he was saving it for later when Willis wasn't around to defend him.

Not that Bruce would be afraid of someone he could snap like a toothpick.

Jason, while he waited for the IV to be gone, felt the smear of makeup on the corner of his lip after having forgotten it, quickly wiping it away when he remembered and hoped no one had seen it. Bruce was watching him though. Watching like he _knew_. Fuck, he prayed not. Jason didn't want to take the inevitable blame for making out with Bruce's girlfriend. How could he even convince the notoriously pig-headed man that he said _no?_

Aside from those immediate worries running amuck in his head, Jason realised the two corpses on the ground, one belonging to Baldie, the other to Fischer - a stick of metal protruding from his neck - and couldn't help but ask himself what the fuck happened while he was out. But, he couldn't say there wasn't a brief glimmer of relief at seeing the pedo growing cold on the floor.

It felt.... _Comforting?_

He breathed a deep sigh, things finally returning to where they looked like things would turn out okayish. But it was still icy here on the warehouse floor, icy and he wanted to go. This place brought back too many memories he would sooner have laying forgotten behind a brick wall of denial. This looked so much like the warehouse in Ethiopia and the predicaments? Well, those hadn't been too different either. Except for this time he wasn't dead. _Sorry to disappoint._

" Dads, Dick," Jason said, quiet, " can we please go somewhere else?"

" The mansion is safest." Bruce immediately said, authoritatively, as if that question affirmed he was in charge again.

" My apartment is, actually." Dick chimed in, like it mattered when Bruce had made up his mind.

" That drug was in him for hours," Willis said because no one except Jason himself should stay quiet right now.

" God knows what damage it's done. He needs to see a doctor. An actual licensed medical professional."

" We'll check him over in the cave." Bruce replied.

" I'm sorry - the _what_? You're saying you have medical equipment stowed away in a hole in the side of a  cliff?"

" That among various high-tech weapons that you couldn't even pronounce the names of." Bruce spat, unusually spiteful with that one.

" We get it, you're rich. Jesus, don't you have anything original to share because I love,  _love_ the sound of your voice?"

" I'm not going to dignify that with an answer."

" Sorry to say it, rich-boy, but you just did." 

Bruce resisted the urge to rip Willis' tongue out through his teeth. Or whip a batarang across his vocal chords. Or make him swallow his teeth. Damn, how could anyone get under his skin the way Willis did? He'd never seen anything like it. 

" Don't make me hurt you..." Bruce snarled. 

" Your existence is punishment enough, Wayne."

They continued to argue and Jason wanted to tear his hair out, slam his face into a floor and _scream_ , because god-fucking-dammit, they were at it again. He was about to yell at them to just stop it for three seconds when he noticed the one thing no one else had until now. That itty-bitty thingy that their fuss over Jason and now bickering hadn't let them realise. That in the middle of all this kerfuffle, Caitlin had gone unnoticed when she silently crawled across the ground to her instrument table beside the surface she had restrained Jason to. There, she had retrieved a detonator that she was now holding while she wobbled on unsteady legs, grinning past her insanity at them for a hair's breadth before she,

" She's got a _bomb-!"_ Jason tried to warn the others but too late because, with a deranged bark of laughter, Caitlin slammed her thumb down on the trigger in the wake of anyone being able to stop her.   

The oblivious bombs that been rigged in the walls went off, tearing through everything in a wild rush of heat and fire.


	15. Chapter 15

Ah. Here he was again. Nearly killed in a cold warehouse with a parent he'd thought to be dead and a goddamn bomb rigged to finish him off. Were it not for the dire nature of his situation, Jason would have bitterly laughed out loud from sheer irony. God or some other omnipotent force was playing a cruel prank on him, wasn't he?

The walls exploded and heat and fire rushed wildly to fill the room, the bright flash of sudden orange light seering Jason's unshielded eyes before he could throw his arm up to protect them.

No time to think, no time to act, Jason expected the full force of the shockwave to career into him and burn the exposed flesh off his bones, perhaps the only thing saving him from that fate was the hand that lurched out of nowhere and wrapped around his wrist, yanking him roughly, just as the roof came down.

Huge rock slabs tumbled down everywhere, the sound almost enough to drown out Caitlin laughing madly above it all, the final screws in her head coming undone as if she completely oblivious to the fiery grave she condemned them to.

"  _Die! Die! Die!"_  Caitlin shrieked.

 

Cailin was a level of crazy that would have made the Joker frown and tell her to bring it down a notch. And while she started her little revenge plan out playing it smart and prioritising precaution, she threw those things and her intellect out the window when she thought a building rigged to blow would take out Batman. Frigging escape artist extraordinaire  _Batman_.

No. If it were that easy, Bruce and his family would be dead ten times over, and added to those odds was the advantage that Caitlin was no mastermind when it came to setting explosives. The gunpowder to nitrate and solid fuel ratio wasn't nearly enough for an explosion of devastating proportion, the blast nowhere near fast enough to reach them before they could act. Bruce grabbed Jason, grabbed his father, both effortlessly filling the crook of his arms, and he ran as far as he could before the shockwave hit full force.

 

Dick wasn't entirely sure how the hell that damn bitch escaped her restraints, only that in the kerfuffle, by some lapse in his usual professionalism, Bruce hadn't secured the zip ties adequately enough to hold a fairly petite woman. Very unusual. However, he didn't lollygag on that when there was a burst of flames and death to not get caught up in. Bruce had Jason and his dad, they'd be fine in his care, so Dick put his priorities elsewhere.

He darted towards that lunatic laughing like a she-Joker while the world around her burned, jumping through fires with his arms crossed to shield his face and over fallen beams. Dick ran, flipping over those things he couldn't jump like a fairy dancing in hell, until he was close enough to Caitlin to have his arms around her. She screamed when in a heartbeat, he was there, screamed in anger and clawed at him hard enough to break her nails, but Dick had suffered assault of a far worse kind, barely even noticing her attempts at hurting him.

He angled his shoulder to take the majority of the impact when he crashed through the window, overlooking Gotham bay, the bitch still with him, but not because that's how she wanted it.

Then the blast wave careered into them, hurling them through the air by additional meters Dick had already braced for, but Caitlin? Well, he's not so sure she was ready for when their bodies hit the bay's surface, hard as a rock thanks to momentum, silvery bubbles and the rush of water wild past his ears when he sank into the depths upon instant contact, burning debris landing all around with a great sizzle. No stranger to submersion nor someone's weight added to his own, Dick didn't allow for them to meet the bottom before he started kicking and clawing in quite the opposite direction, not eager to drown after saving himself an inferno for a grave.

He gasped, coughed, when his head broke the restless surface, fastening his hold tighter around the woman who sought to murder his little brother to prevent and minimise her chances of escape. She wasn't getting the easy way out by just dying like indubitably, she had intended.

" You fucking dumb little bird bitch!" Caitlin screeched at him, leaving long stinging red lines on his face and kicking, squirming, doing her all to make this difficult for him despite the fact that he saved her life. Or was that the issue here?

" You fucking ruined everything, you fucking gypsy!" She continued to scream and buried the sharp points of her fingers around his collarbone, miraculously or by pure intent, managing a worry through his body armour.

" Settle down!" Dick ordered, wet bangs heavy on his brow and somewhat impeding his vision as they hung over his eyes. He struggled to hold her in place and swim back ashore, her restraint demanding both arms, leaving little with which to keep them afloat, no question why they kept bobbing beneath the waves. 

Dick gagged when he went under again and swallowed a mouthful of filthy bay water, tasting strongly of ash and mud, the remnants of it gurgling past his teeth as he choked on it. Caitlin seized her opportunity when his concentration was on breathing, not so much on her or her hands, that is, until she wrapped them tight around his throat. She squeezed, sudden and immense pressure closing the sides of his windpipe. Disbelieving and unsure what the hell she thought she could accomplish that he couldn't fight off, Dick's chance to get her off him was cut short by Bruce's hand lurching over from the pier (when had they even gotten close to it?) and yanking her away from him by her neck, like she was a rabid animal that had to be held in a specific way to avoid being bitten. But that wasn't exactly far-fetched.

Dick watched in surprise at his father's sudden appearance, and a tinge of intimidation by seeing how harshly he handled Caitlin, his girlfriend. Although, he would put a bet on them being over after her stunts. Bruce ripped her from the water without caring for holding back on how rough he knew he could get, his fingers digging indentations that would become bruises into her previously perfect skin. Her feet weren't even on the ground, rather she was dangled above it.

 She glared all her hatred out at him and even with his mask concealing his emotions, Dick could tell by the tense of his jaw and scrunch in his brow, that Bruce felt exactly the same as she did.

" Don't you  _ever_...." Bruce's voice quivered with how purely  _angry_  he was,  nothing but that. Angry. 

"... Come near my children again."

Caitlin stopped scowling and thrashing in his hold long enough to hear that, then smirked, lips with smeared gloss tugging up at the corners in a way that was far from sane. She looked like a fucking viper.

" Or what?" 

To answer that, Bruce pulled her close, real close until his mouth was right by her ear and he murmured something that was too low and too quiet for Dick to pick up, but whatever it was, it wiped the smug look off Caitlin's bruised face and replaced it with one of.... what even was that emotion she was expressing? 

" Hey, kid," 

Dick looked up, surprised again, to see Willis standing on the tier, gazing down at him. His hair was tousled by the blast and his skin blackened by soot,  cuts and bruises peppered him, specs and patches of dry blood, but all in all, he looked good. For a Todd fresh out an explosion, that is.

Willis leaned in and extended his arm to Dick.

" Need some help up?" 

" Sure. Thanks."

But before Dick could accept the hand he so graciously offered, Jason joined them, appearing none the worse for wear, if still a little pale and shaken up by everything with marks and wounds to remember it by. Not that that was much of a brow-raiser, too strong senses of nightmarish deja vu in one night for Jason to rebound back to his usual roguish and sarcastic self just yet. 

" I'll get him, dad." Jason told Willis and without giving Dick opportunity to figure out what he meant by that, he reached down and plucked Dick out of the water by the collar of his suit, lowering him onto his feet on the soaked platform boards, all with one arm. Dick stared at him. Sometimes..... he forgot how strong his little brother had gotten in seemingly no time at all. 

" Um, thanks, little wing." Dick mumbled, somewhat embarrassed by the lift he'd gotten. Embarrassed but not ungrateful. He looked at his feet for a moment, hair and clothes drip-dropping beads of water onto the ground and seemed to dye it blacker than before. When he did raise his gaze again, it was to meet his brother's tentative teal-green eyes, tentative like he needed someone to convince the worst of it was over. Dick didn't blame him if he still expected another bomb to go off or peril in general to befall him. That was, unfortunately, what he was accustomed to.

" You okay?" Dick asked him and he nodded jerkingly, fidgeting with his hands as he rubbed his palms together profusely enough to wear away the skin.

" Just... It's just a big explosion." Jason explained, unsure of himself for some reason and clearly, restless.

Features softening, Dick touched the side of his face with an extended hand he needed to elevate somewhat, fingers brushing the length of his cut jawline. Jason seemed to respond neutrally to the gesture as he didn't say or do anything protest worthy.

"  _Was_ , a big explosion. It's over, Jay."

Again, like temporary muteness had taken its hold, all Jason did for a reply was nod. He glanced over at Bruce, dragging Caitlin away to restrain her to a nearby lamp post, and this time, with handcuffs she wouldn't be slipping out of so easily. 

" Why-" Jason started, darting his tongue fleetingly across his bottom lip. " - why did you save her?" He sounded a tinge hurt, confused,  _vulnerable_ , even. His voice was strained and lined with small breaks, the way Dick would have imagined it to be when Bruce denied Jason Joker's death at his hand, say for the noticeable lack of anger. He didn't see it as the same thing, did he?

Dick didn't find the words to explain with before Willis cut in, and he was actually grateful for that. Despite the tales of his past temperament management issues, the guy seemed genuinely gifted when it came to explaining things to Jason. Must be a side effect of how similar they thought.

" She's not getting away with what she did to you, Jay," Willis said, turning Jason around by his shoulder to face him. Unlike himself, Jason went with it.

" By fucking dying. The bitch deserves worse than that. Arkham isn't what you'd call a good living environment."  

" No." Jason agreed. " Take it from me." He said and perhaps sensed that his father was going to ask why the hell he'd ever been incarcerated in the asylum, which would have sparked another wildfire of issues to add to the ones he already with Bruce. 

" I'm still cold." He mumbled, and though Willis as his parent was probably blind to it, Dick knew that Jason, in fact, wasn't remotely that, especially after being near engulfed by the blast of fire, and that this was a con to take his father's mind off what he said before.  

" Head back to the mansion." Bruce told them rather than ordered when he returned. Over his shoulder, you could see Caitlin screaming and yanking hard against the cuffs and the lamp post, yanking until the skin on her wrists began to peel. Crazy bitch.

" All of you. I'll stay until Gordon comes."  

" Nah, I'll stay an' wait for the commish." Dick announced, stepping past them before Bruce could block him, turning to walk backwards towards Caitlin and making a heart with his hands, directed toward Jason. Jason's eyes were wider than he had ever seen them, wide and pleading silently for him to stay and ease Jason's anxiety of being alone and sandwiched between his two fathers, who happened to despise each other. Ignoring those desperate puppy-dog eyes, Dick blew his little brother a kiss, spinning around on his ankle.

In the wake of the treacherous deserter abandoning him, Jason looked between Bruce and Willis, who were both staring elsewhere, refusing to meet the other's gaze. The aggression between them had, however, faded to something more like tension.

" Oh, fuck me." Jason sighed, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets. This was gonna be a long, long night. And Dick had sworn the worst was over.

* * *

 

Willis returned from his rather lengthy self-guided exploration tour of Wayne's cave with a breathless sensation constricting like a band around his chest. Fuck, that guy was rich. Not a single piece of technology down here was non-military grade, all part of his personal war on crime in Gotham. 

The cave was massive, filled with all those things Wayne had assured him he wouldn't be able to pronounce the names of and indeed, that may actually be the case. But aside from all the tech and weapons and gadgets that were on display, what Willis really stopped to study were the glass cases on the second floor, containing rows and rows of combat suits, each from a different era in the Bat's history. Although, there were others too, a few of Nightwing's former geddups including one paler blue version with a high collar, plunging V-neckline, and a sprinkling of golden pallets made to look like feathers tracing the shoulders, all of which added to one big what the fuck? 

After spending longer than he cared to admit in asking himself what was wrong with the youth of today and their fashion sense, Willis moved onto the smaller red, yellow, and green themed costumes with their bright schemes and cute miniature versions of every tool Batman had. He paused at one in particular, no need for aid from the bronze plaque with Jason's name on it to recognise it was the same suit worn by Robin in the photo he'd seen at Jason's safehouse. Only in this instance, old tears had been sewn shut with black thread and patches of it replaced by new materials when certain areas had been burned beyond restoration. The crimson had two variations to it, darker and lighter, no amount of soap and water able to scrub out the extent of blood that had once soaked the material. The stains were massive, leaving hardly any of the original colour the way it had been. 

Willis swallowed heavily and his arms tightened around himself but he continued to stare nonetheless, something about the suit too captivating to look away from. He was too deeply drawn into the notion that  _that_  was the thing his son was beaten to death in, to realise when feet approached him until Wayne was towering over him. He was still dawning his cape and the whole outfit to go with it, except for the lack of the cowl over his head that now hung down his back, between his shoulder blades.

" I look at it every day." He said solemnly, a certain amount of distance to his voice. Willis glanced at him and notice how his eyes were fixated on the small red uniform and indeed, there was distance there too, like his mind went on a gander back to the day it happened.

" He was so little back then." Willis remarked, taking in that the child who this once belonged to only reached his shoulder.

" In a lot of ways, he still is." 

Willis murmured his agreement, shooting a quick keek in the direction of his son, sitting shirtless on the edge of an examination table while Wayne's butler looked him over and ran some additional small tests. He was too far away to hear them and chatting the elderly man (who was barely listening) up about something, thus not paying attention to them in the least.  Willis watched him just for sake of gazing at the mischievous smile on his face as he retold some tale. When he eventually turned back, he said,

" I still can't believe how big he's gotten. I mean, he was  _so_  tiny as a kid."

Wayne agreed with a tip of his head. 

" The Lazarus' Pits rejuvenating effect, it made him stronger than he would have otherwise grown to be. Bigger, too."

" The _what_ -a-rus pit?" Willis asked, an only brow arched as a testament to his puzzlement. Bruce then realised he had no idea what half of his family's normal conversation meant, their lingo a virtual different language.

" It's... It's an ancient mineral water with healing properties." Damn, this was gonna be tough to summarise. "After Jason's resurrection, he wasn't... himself, oxygen deprivation while trapped in his coffin and the blunt force trauma before his death resulted in a catatonic state he wasn't coming out of. An.... _acquaintance_ of mine used the Pit's influence to heal Jason." Upon seeing the horror on Willis' face after that short recounting that wasn't the half of it and how the colour had drained from his skin, Bruce decided to leave out the murderous and sociopathic madness the emerald waters had left engraved in Jason, that to this day, hadn't worn out completely.

" _Jesus_. I knew it was bad but.... fucking hell." He shook his head and Bruce noted how his fingers dug into the meat of his arms to the point where there was no chance of it being painless. Jason did the exact thing from time to time, especially when he was in some state of distress or anxiety.

" He... he's strong." Bruce said, as if that made it better. 

" Hell yeah, he is." Willis breathed, disbelief and some serious weight in his tone of voice. Bruce knew what he was thinking, could I have prevented it? All this pain and suffering? The nightmares and the misery? The hurt? The abuse? Bruce would let him know the answer if he ever figured it out himself.

" Listen," Bruce spoke up after a while where nothing happened but they gazed upon the uniform in the glass case. When he did make himself vocal once more, Willis shifted ever so slightly to face him, having to tip his head back quite the distance to meet his line of sight.

" Jason.... he would have died were it not for you. We wouldn't have found a compatible blood source in time. Th...  _thank_   _you_."

Willis shivered, glancing away and wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue, hummingbird-fast. 

" You're making me uncomfortable, Wayne." He confessed and like most things Jason had ever said in his entire life, Bruce couldn't tell if he was serious with that statement. 

" But it wasn't just me. You an' your boy did the most work, all I needed to do is exist. Consider us a symbiosis regarding that and leave it there, 'k?"

Bruce frowned. " Alright." 

Again, silence passed, but not the awkward kind, more like Willis was gearing up to say something he would rather not voice, because that would bring it out of the land of denial. He sighed, loud.

" Those.... those people did something to Jason." He finally said, again fidgeting with his hands like a man disgusted as he was displeased. 

" I know. I saw." 

" _No_." Willis shook his head and Bruce tried not to notice how much Jason's father dabbed his tongue on his lower lip and left bruises on his arms whenever they were folded. Which was often, perhaps a pose he felt safer in. Some people did.

" Before you and Dick came along. There was a guy, big guy, an..." Willis swallowed heavily like there was something bad taking up space in his mouth, and it was indeed, sheer repulsion and the sickening knowledge that there was yet another thing he couldn't save Jason from.  

" He made Jason _suck_..." Too dismayed by that truth to finish the sentence, the whole notion sending chills through his skin that struck marrow, Willis didn't think he'd ever seen an expression to rival the sudden but gradual white-hot fury that got stronger and stronger with every word, on Bruce's face. His fists were clenched hard at his sides and his jaw incredibly taut, points of his teeth peeking from cover. 

" Where is this man?" He demanded quietly, voice too calculated, forced, and dark, like he was spitting, to sound natural. He sounded the same as when confronting Caitlin.

" Dead." Willis said, and if he weren't already, that would change soon. " Caitlin shot him for disobedience in regards to not touching Jason." 

It appeared as if thought Bruce wanted to growl like a wild animal just to express what the news invoked in him, some primal wrath born of protectiveness. That bastard's death wasn't unwelcome news, and part of him wished, that Caitlin would have joined him. Dick did the right thing, of course, he did what he had been taught to when he risked his life for hers, but.... well, he didn't have to save her. He couldn't get over how phenomenally he fucked up when he trusted her near his family. This was as much his fault as anyone else's.

At some point, they'd both commenced their supervision of their son, talking to Alfred. His good mood had died down somewhat, tiredness the cause maybe, but still, no part of him seemed to really remember any of the torture that day alone had brought with it. If Jason ever dwelled on things, they would break him, so he pushed it all aside. Unhealthy? Yes. Necessary? _Absolutely_.  

 " He didn't say anything." Bruce said and really, why would Jason have? He never shared more than he had to and often, not even that.

" He doesn't remember." Willis hoped that was true. He hoped to fucking god it was. " The drug... he was delirious. He doesn't recall any of it." 

Bruce nodded, grim, arms folded over his broad chest and the symbol people had given their lives for. He lowered his head to eye the ground.

" Then we don't tell him."

" No. _Never_." And for once, they were 100% of a like mind. Their displeasure at the other's existence couldn't water down the fact that Jason took up a large part of the reason they still existed to ruin the other's mood. 

That familiar faced silence came creeping back in with both of them lost in thought of the same nature, until,

" Look, Wayne," Willis turned again, gathering Bruce's attention up all to himself again, despite the fact he was no doubt getting kicked around by regrets in his head. That made two.

" We're probably never gonna agree on everything, or even half of the things. But," he gestured to Jason, off to their side, still completely oblivious to being the topic of their conversation.

 " We also have him to think about, and he doesn't need us at each other's throats every three seconds."

Bruce hummed in agreement, reminded of the old saying, a  broken clock is right twice a day, because this might be the second time he and Willis could claim they believed the same thing. This was becoming scarily frequent and hopefully, not a thing.

" I mean," Willis continued, " I fucking hate you for putting Jason in that uniform, but that's back then. If he were still dead, we'd have no common grounds to stand on and I'd have no reason to not try everything to destroy you. But he's not, he's alive." 

" And I think you exposed Jason to things he never should have seen as a child," Bruce told him, now that they were getting this all out there in the open. 

" But, I'm guilty of that too." This may be the first time he had ever confessed his mistakes aloud to someone who wasn't Alfred or a figure he fabricated to have a person to talk to. 

" So we're both fuck ups." Willis said what they both knew full well as he motioned back to Jason. " But that's our problem. Let's not make it his, too."

" If we can avoid it." 

" Yeah, so kick my ribs in when Jason's not looking. That's fine." He said and Bruce detected his attempt to lighten the mood, something he himself never practised, but he could appreciate it. But not much. He and Willis still hated each other.

" I'm sorry about that." He grumbled past the small smile he was trying so hard not to wear. He  _hated_  Willis. Hated him. And the truth of that made these constant reminders truly necessary.

Bruce glanced over at Jason's father, the person with an unspoken obsession he had taken notice of, to wear long sleeved shirts. But, he hadn't been doing that for a while now and that was because the garment had been incinerated after he covered Jason with it at the warehouse. Actually seeing his arms, folded as they were, meant Bruce could get a good study of the distinctly bat shaped scar forming a rise above his skin, reminiscent of a batarang thrown just right, to leave a mark.

" Did... did _I_ do that?" He asked, trying hard to remember when he had, but failing. He'd taken on so many foes to be able to recount each of them, but what he did doubt was that Willis had been doing anything terribly illegal, instead just breaking the law.

Willis frowned in thought, not needing specifics as to what he was asking about. 

" You know," he scrunched up his features as he tried recollecting, " I think it was that other guy who runs around the city dressed like a flying rat and throws around bat shaped bits of metal at people trying to feed their kids."

" There are things you can do outside of breaking the law." 

Willis cleared his throat as if to correct him. " Um, excuse me? Do you know the time you can get for vigilantism?" 

Bruce sighed, irked to be backed into a corner here. He certainly wasn't wrong there, but did he have to be right?

" Fine. We won't speak about our professions, former or not, again. Deal?"

Willis nodded, smiling slightly when he looked back away and Bruce had to admit, that expression looked alien on him. Not bad, but just... something to get used to.

" Just so you know, I do appreciate you taking care of Jason when I wasn't here. Even with the whole Robin thing, he woulda been worse off on his own with the things he was doing." He told Bruce and that confession was one he didn't maintain eye contact for, be it for one reason or another. 

" I was the substitute," Bruce said, " not the replacement. I see that now. Jason needs two parents, and since both mothers are dead, I guess we'll have to suffice."

" You hittin' on me, Wayne?" Willis asked and this time, the grin in his voice couldn't be hidden or mildened, the sort that complimented his gaudy sense of humour, and Bruce was once again reminded of who it was who Jason had inherited all his least enjoyable qualities from. 

" _No_." Bruce bit back, perhaps a bit too fast and forced, a mistake he realised in the aftermath of it coming out his mouth. 

" I can't stand you."

" Same. If you were drowning, I'd just watch with a side of popcorn handy."

" What're guys talkin' about?" Jason asked, appearing coming up the staircase while he worked his shirt back down, over his torso and the autopsy scar that made both his fathers look in another direction. Jason didn't mind the reaction with how used to it he was, understanding the displeasure seeing such an ugly reminder caused.

" Just mutual feelings of hatred." Willis let him know when he joined them were they were standing, eyes going sceptically between them, unsure why they hadn't yet torn into each other or even tried to push one another off over the railing.

" Uh, okay." Jason turned to the taller of his two fathers, dwarfing the other. He too, had to tip his head back a bit to make visual contact, otherwise he would have been left with a close up of Bruce's collarbones.  

" Um, about all this fightin' an-"

Bruce raised a hand to cover Jason's mouth, subsequently putting an instant stop to his uncertain attempt to apologise when he did nothing wrong. Nothing at all as far as Bruce was now concerned. Previously, he'd thought Willis had been out to hurt Jason and had thus attempted to protect him in ways that were far from acceptable. Fortunately for all parties involved, this couldn't be something that could ever be repeated.

" You're okay, Jason. I'm the one at fault here. I shouldn't have treated you like that, considering everything that was going on then." He took a breath, removing his hand from over Jason's puzzled face. " And I'm very sorry." 

Jason's brow furrowed and his eyes moved to Willis for some kind of explanation, but he put his hands up and gave his son a 'don't come to me with this' face, or was it more of a 'discuss it with your father' expression? Jason honestly didn't know which he found to be more preferable. He was honestly scared by what looked like Bruce and Willis getting on as well as they possibly could.

" But I was the one who fucked up." Jason said, genuinely believing that, as he resumed facing Bruce. " I disobeyed, got captured, poisoned, all that jazz. My fault." 

" I swear to god, Jay," Willis spoke up, " none of that's your fault. Wayne and I, we handled this whole thing badly, fightin' each other instead of the actual people out for blood. That's on us, 'k?" 

" He's right, Jason." Bruce stepped in. 

Jason stared at them, wide-eyed, realising the horror that was unfolding before him when his parents joined as a united front against him, instead of bickering among themselves. Was he already missing those times? Jason had never had parents who stood together in any matter that concerned him and he thinks he already hates it.

" Whatever sick trick this is, please stoppit. It's - it's-" Jason shivered, his discomfort visible for all to see. " _Unnatural_."

" So is Wayne's hairline and that gets a pass." Willis remarked and Bruce subconsciously reached to feel his forehead, slowly, going over that comment and unable to get whether it had any truth to it.  He mouthed an inaudible _what?_

" Oh my _god_. Please _stop_." Jason whined, nothing short of pitifully pleading as he buried his face in his hands, fingers parted just enough for Bruce and Willis to see the anguish on his face, anguish refreshingly different from all the nightmares of today. Jason actually looked his age in that instance. Bruce smiled and Willis did, too.

There were still so many things that needed to be cleared from the airspace, perhaps more than could ever be discussed, but right then and there, it felt like things were finally drawing to a rest. Caitlin would rot in Arkham for the rest of her life, Fischer was as he'd deserved for a long time now, dead, and Jason had one major set of issues in his life solved. His biggest misconception, finally corrected, and that loosened the noose an inch more. Maybe one day it would fall free, its knot no longer tight enough to hold.

" Sorry, kid," Willis reached out to ruffle his hair.  " You're stuck with us." 

* * *

 

_" I just don't get it, daddy." Jason sighed, leaning back where he sat on his father's crossed legs, back against his chest, and watched as the city of Gotham began to plunge into night, all her sparkling golden lights visible from the roof of their building._

_" What don't you get, Jay?" Willis asked through the yawn he muffled with his fist, keeping one arm constantly fastened around Jason to prevent him falling. Not that he would have far to fall with them nowhere near the edge, but a parent was ever vigilant and avoiding impossible things at all times, if they fell anywhere near the risk category._

_Jason liked to look at stars and make out constellations to the best of his five-year-old knowledge, but it seemed like the boy had other things on his mind that he wanted to discuss. With a child so young, you knew it was serious._

_Jason extended his arm and pointed towards the big yellow floodlight booming in the distance, the universal plea for Batman's attention. He lowered it when Willis looked._

_" Why does everyone want Batman to come save them?"  He shifted and stared up at Willis with those big bright sea-green eyes that were contemplating the current biggest questions of his life. Last night, that had been why spagetti came in different colours._

_" Why don't they just save themselves?"_

_Willis tipped his head, acknowledging that that wasn't a bad question, if unexpectedly mature._

_" Well, you see, you can't always save yourself. Sometimes you need another person's help."_

_But Jason, oh sweet over-thinking Jason, wasn't satisfied with this answer. Not even close. He frowned very deeply, an expression too intense to look fitting on a child's face._

_" But what if Batman isn't there to help them and they still need it? What then?"_

_Willis stroked his hair with a smile, enjoying the adorable way his son picked these things apart and examined every piece in detail. He may be smiling but he knew to Jason, this was no matter to be joked with._

_" Then, if they can, they figure out how to solve the problem themselves. Sometimes realising no one is coming to save you makes you do it yourself."_

_" But then why doesn't Batman let people learn how to save themselves?"_

_" Uh, I'm not sure, Jay." And he had to admit, he wasn't. Like, how do you even answer a question like that to someone so lacking in years?_

_" Maybe if you meet Batman one day, you can ask him."_

_" I don't think he'd like me." Jason confessed, sinking back into Willis' chest and staring ahead at the floodlight that dominated the inky sky._

_" Why not?"_

_" Because I don't like him."_

_Willis bit into his lip to suppress a smile, himself and the scar on his arm both heartily agreeing with that._

_" How come?"_

_Jason shrugged his shoulders with another sigh escaping his lips, like he wasn't sure what brought on his opinion. He eventually gathered himself enough to answer._

_" Because you don't like Batman."_

_" Hm." Willis straightened his curved spine, picking Jason up between both hands just enough to turn him around and look him in the eyes, his demeanour changed. Jason blinked up at him, confused but expectant for what he was going to say._

_" Listen, Jason, you know you don't have to think something just because I do, okay? You're entitled to your own opinion."_

_Jason tipped his chin, near touching his chest. " I don't know what that means." He admitted like it was a shameful matter._

_" What? Entitled? It just means that you're allowed to decide what you think of people. Batman may not even be as bad as I think. He helps a lotta people, so who knows?"_

_" I'll find out when I fight him."_

_Willis choked on a laugh but managed to pass it as a cough, not wanting to make Jason think he was being made fun of._

_" You're fighting him?"_

_" Yes." Jason nodded with all the conviction in the world. " Yes, I am. And I'll win because he'll be an old man when I'm grown up."_

_This time, Willis actually let the laugh come out, a good-natured chuckle at his son's somewhat ludicrous plans for his future, but who was he to debunk them? Let the kid dream if he wanted to._

_" Okay, just don't hurt him too bad."_

_Jason cocked his head to consider the amount of damage he would do.  " On second thought, maybe I won't fight him. Maybe I can help him beat the bad guys like Robin?"_

_" I bet he'd like that." Willis assured him and could tell his encouragement meant the world to his son by the way it ignited little stars in his eyes. " Just don't beat bad guys by starting with me, 'k?"_

_" No, daddy." Jason giggled and wrapped his arms around his father's neck, pressing an uncoordinated kiss onto his cheek through his smile. " Don't worry, we're friends."_

_" Always." Willis said, inlacing his own arms around the boy to return his hug._

_" And Batman will be our friend, too."_

That _, he wasn't so sure of. " We'll see, Jason. We'll see."_

_After that dispute, Jason kept rambling on about something indiscernible and childishly innocent, resuming his spot in Willis lap as he jabbered away into the night. Willis listened patiently and added his input when it was requested, but mostly he sat in silence with his chin rested on top of Jason's mop of black locks, taking in how peaceful the world seemed when it was just him and his baby. He knew tomorrow the messes would pile up again and the calamity would find its way back into his life. It would be loud and busy and stressful and all of it would do his head in._

_But for this short moment, every bit of existence gave him a break and let everything feel perfect, the one thing he'd never regretted right here with him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STORYTIME! I was gonna kill Willis and Caitlin too, so she suffers nothing, but I also don't want to emotionally devastate anyone any more than I already have, die of self induced depression, or hurt Jason further. The right choice? I don't think I'll ever know.
> 
> Anyways, thanks for bearing with me and for all the kudos and lovely comments xxx


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